Candy Land, Candy Land, Candy Land

This past week my daughter, Marcella, whom Cella’s Sweets is named after, turned a year old.  I asked Marcella what kind of party she wanted and she just looked at me and said “Dada” so my wife and I decided to go with a Candy Land theme.  I use the word “theme”

loosely.  It was more like an obsession.  For the past two months Candy Land was all I could think about.  Did you know there was a troll named “Plumpy” in the original game but he has been kicked off of more recent versions?  Also, there is Mr. Mint, Princess Lolli, Queen Frostine and Gloppy, just to name a few more. You see, I know way too much about this game.  But, that being said, it does make the basis for one great party.  Weeks of painting, carving, planning, cutting and pasting led to a real life Candy Land, complete with eight lands, a rainbow trail, 300 balloons and over 78 pounds of candy, not to mention a fabulous cake made by yours truly.

So without delay let’s enter Candy Land.  The first thing you see is a sign from King Kandy asking the boys and girls to help him find his castle.

Quaint, isn’t it?  Next we see Plumpy and the Gingerbread Plum Tree.  Plumpy was kind enough to share his gingersnaps with the children.  With three foot suckers lining the path we then come upon the Peppermint Forest.  Once inside we see the Licorice Castle and the Ice Cream Sea. Through the Rainbow Trail we stumble upon the Lollipop Woods.

Our path takes us back outside to see Gramma Nut’s House and the Molasses Swamp, complete with “fishing” and “digging for worms.” I took crushed Oreos and threw a buch of gummy worms in a planter so the kids could dig up fishing worms.  Back inside we pass through the Gumdrop Mountains and finally find our Candy Castle.

The cake was the centerpiece of our “Candy Castle.”

I took a vanilla sheet cake and iced it with vanilla buttercream icing.  I used my new favorite toys, the Wilton Color Misters, to spray the different colors on the sheet.  Once the background colors were in place, I cut out the squares from fondant to simulate the squares on the game board.  The gingerbread tree was made out of modeling chocolate.  The peanut brittle house was made out of…well…peanut brittle…what else would a peanut brittle house be made of?  That being said, I’m sure you can guess what the Licorice Castle was made out of.  I cheated on the Peppermint Forest and the Lollipop Woods, although I did unwrap the suckers and the peppermints before I placed them on the cake.  For the Molasses Swamp, I spread out my fudge icing and then piped Gloppy into place.

The fudgcicles were made from toothpicks and modeling chocolate and the leaves from fondant.  The Ice Cream Sea was fun.  I took a cookie dough scoop and scooped out vanilla, chocolate and green icing to look like ice cream, and it did.  I happened upon my gingerbread cookie cutters and decided to add the game pieces made of fondant. Finally, the castle was a separate cake.  I made it two layers and iced it with my buttercream icing.  I used the yellow color mister and sprayed it golden.  I attached four large ice cream cones filled with chocolate cake and added the scoops, from a real ice cream scoop, on top of the cones.  After adding a couple of other colored cones for decoration, I used some sprinkles to top the ice cream.  This was my favorite cake to make.  All that candy and sugar made me feel like a little boy, and I “occasionally” acted like one.

The real star of the party was, of course, Marcella.  She was a wonderful hostess, smiling and greeting everyone as they made their way through her kingdom.  My wife made Marcella’s cake, and boy did she like it.  It was a chocolate cake with a vanilla whipped icing and sprinkles for good measure.  Here she is enjoying her big day.

All in all, it was a great day, and we had lots of fun planning and being a part of her special day.