Party Tip: Throwing a Cookie Decorating Party!
I meant to post this last year, after my son’s 6th birthday party, but then all parties were canceled because of the pandemic. I know we’re still going through the pandemic, but you can always save this for future reference!
This party was kind of last-minute for me, since I didn’t really start planning until about 3 weeks before. I spent a lot of that time looking for helpful ideas and pictures of other cookie decorating parties/classes to get a good idea of how to plan for mine. I also asked for tips in a Facebook cookie decorating group.
So, some of this might be common sense, but here’s what I did:
Use disposable tablecloths and [paper] placemats or Kraft paper to cover your tables.
Table settings, with Kraft paper to line the tables, styrofoam trays in the center with sprinkles and decorating scribes, and some colorful plates, plastic cutlery, and reusable glass milk bottles.
Buy bakery boxes for the kids to take their cookies home in. I bought mine on Amazon. 8 x 5 3/4” boxes fit four 3” cookies very snugly. I’d probably get the next size up next time.
I purchased foam trays from Dollar Tree for the kids to decorate their cookies on, but obviously large disposable plates would also work.
Use 10”-12”icing bags with a few tablespoons of royal icing and tie the tops. Apparently tying the tops works better than using clips, with kids. Who knows. 🤷🏽♀️
I was going to make 4 colors of icing for each child, but my sister in law and I were literally filling the piping bags during the party 😅, so some colors had to be shared. But it was fine, because this was pre-pandemic, and there was a lot of icing leftover that got thrown away. (Some kids did eat some of their icing straight out of the bags, though, so those couldn’t be shared. If I was doing an actual class, everyone would for sure be getting their own bags just to be safe. 😅)
I bought mini scribes for the kids to use that worked out well, but toothpicks would also work. (Scribes are used for nudging or smoothing the icing, making swirly designs, or popping bubbles in the icing. I told the kids that scribes are also helpful for puncturing the tires of your enemies. Pretty sure they knew I was joking. Hopefully.😆)
•I made 3 different sprinkle mixes before the party and put them into 4 oz condiment cups. (The cups weren’t even halfway full, and that was plenty.) That way, the kids all had their own sprinkles and nobody could just dump an entire container of sprinkles on one cookie, leaving none for the other kids to use.
I also made some extra cookies in case some of the kids’ cookies broke, or in case some of the parents wanted to decorate some cookies, too!
The kids each got their cookies in a bakery box, an apron, and a paper chef hat as their party favors. I saw a fun idea where the kids decorated their chefs hats before they decorated their desserts! Another fun idea would be mini whisks or (personalized) mini rolling pins!
This is a really fun, *fairly* easy party theme for ages 4 and up. I was going to instruct the kids on how to do specific designs, but it was easier for me and really fun for everyone to see the different things they all came up with! Some of the kids really got into it and seemed to just have a natural knack for cookie decorating, which was pretty cool!
Future artists and bakers in the making! 😄🤗🥳
