A Calvin & Hobbes Birthday Party

The Boy's birthday is next week, and we had his party today.  He requested Calvin & Hobbes, and I happily obliged.

First, there was the cake.  I made a carrot cake and yellow cake, in "tiger stripes," per the instructions in this zebra cake post.  I used box cake mix, but if I had more energy, I would have made it from scratch.

I made Italian Meringue Buttercream, which is actually quite easy and forgiving.  I used this recipe from Sweetapolita. I used some for frozen buttercream transfer, which I have done before.  Basically, you trace the desired design on wax paper (I have tried it with parchment, and it doesn't work nearly as well), with the colors needed of buttercream.  The easiest way is to start with the outlines and then fill in.  The technique is a lot like piped chocolate designs.  My designs were pretty small, so I used the smallest piping tip I could find.

Before piping

Starting the outlines

More outlines

Hobbes orange done

All done, waiting to freeze

What the design looks like from the "right side" of the wax paper

Transferred to the cake

After you are done all the layers of piping, you freeze for a while - I did about an hour or so - and then press the designs where you want them on a cake frosted in buttercream, then re-freeze the entire cake for about 20 minutes for the best transfer of the design.  I have tried to remove the wax paper before re-freezing, but the designs stick better if the cake is frozen first, in my opinion.  A note - I made the buttercream that was used to frost the cake into "cheesecake flavored" by folding in a package of softened cream cheese.  It was delicious.

It was fantastic.

For the other food, I pretty much made sandwiches.  I did not make the sandwiches that The Boy wanted me to, like Calvin made for his trip to the Yukon with Hobbes - marshmallow and honey, and chocolate syrup.  Nope.

I made three kinds of bread.  First, I made "Dutch Crunch Bread," which is supposed to crackle and looked a bit like tiger stripes.  It didn't crackle that well, but it was still fun and yummy.  I served this bread with Hobbes' favorite, tuna fish salad.

I also made pain de mie, and made BLT sandwiches, but used tomato bruschetta spread instead of sliced tomatoes.

On the pain de mie,, I also made cheddar, hummus, and lettuce sandwiches, to make sure that our vegetarian friends had enough options.

I made some whole wheat pain de mie, and on that bread made pesto, mozzarella, salami, and honey ham sandwiches.  I tossed some dried spent grains from beer brewing into this bread dough in place of some of the flour, and it was delightful.

The Boy requested a party favorite - Phyllo wrapped asparagus.  He said that Calvin hates green things, so I should make them.  That works for me.

Also on a theme of things Calvin hates, I made this Sunny Spinach Pie, using store bought pie crust.  The Boy said that I should make this because Calvin's mom always tries to sneak spinach into everything.

The Boy put together this nice vegetable platter.

The Girl arranged this fruit platter.

And finally, we had some deviled eggs.  Sorry about the fuzzy picture.

Overall, we had a lovely party, and The Boy had a great time.  I hope that you try the frozen buttercream transfer.  It's really fun and impressive looking.