Kids Birthday Party Theme: Western - the food edition

The other day I posted part 1 of my Western Birthday Party Theme. Today I'll be covering the food. The glorious, glorious food. 

If throwing a western themed birthday party for a little cowboy or cowgirl, awesome western food is an absolute must. For my theme I made a cactus birthday cake with matching desert sand cupcakes and sheriff badge cookies:

And they're all actually super-duper easy to do. 

So here's what you'll need:

12 patty-pans

Greased 10x23cm rectangular cake tin (well... Any rectangular cake tin, really)

Basic Cake Recipe

3 - 4 cups icing sugar

2 heaped Tbsp's butter (say NO to palm oil!)

Milk (extra)

Food colouring: yellow and blue

5 tsp's shredded coconut

Bol's Rainbow Laces ($2 from K-Mart)

Basic Cookie recipe

Star shaped cookie cutter

Raw sugar (to decorate)

The cactus cake and cupcakes were made using one batch of cake mix (just to make life a little easier and keep the kitchen a little tidier). I made them using my basic cake recipe, filling 12 patty-pans just over a third of the way full and pouring the rest of the batter (plus a few drops of mixed yellow and blue food colouring to make the cactus cake green) into a greased 10x23 rectangular cake tin. 

Bake the cupcakes and cake at 180ºc (around 15 minutes for the cupcakes and around 30 - 45 minutes for the cake). 

Leave to cool entirely and whip up some buttercream: 3 - 4 cups of icing sugar, 2 heaped tablespoons of softened butter and milk (extra) should do the trick. Mix everything together and keep adding (small amounts of) milk until the buttercream is nice and soft and spreadable (and delicious). Colour the icing yellow and spread a thin layer on top of your cupcakes. 

Put 5 teaspoons of coconut into a cup and add a few drops of yellow food colouring. Mix until the coconut is yellow and sprinkle on top of cupcakes for the 'desert sand'. 

Cut a small length off your rectangular cake (about 1/3). Cut that piece again like so:

To make the cactus arms.

Place the pieces together. Add blue food colouring to the remaining buttercream to make it green, and spread liberally onto the cake, covering all sides.

To finish off the cactus cake, cut a few green and blue rainbow laces to size (these are lollies btw, in case you're not familiar) with scissors and arrange on top. 

To finish off your western themed party food make the cookie dough, roll out thin on a floured work surface and cut out star shapes for sheriff badges. Place on a greased/baking paper covered tray and then, to turn your star shaped cookies into sheriff badge ones, roll out left over dough into tiny balls and press flat onto each star point (you may want to wet the points slightly to help stick). Finally, sprinkle a little raw sugar onto each sheriff badge and cook at 180ºc for around 10 - 15 minutes. This dough makes HEAPS of cookies (up to 30 depending on how thin you make them) so excess dough can be stored in the fridge for later use). 

So that's how you make western themed party food!

If you want to keep with the theme for all your food, why not throw a BBQ? (With all the fixins, of course!) and serve popcorn and corn chips in upside down cowboy hats? 

My next post will go through the final bits and pieces to create a proper western birthday party - the decorations, games and of course, party favours :)