A party for kids gives you the perfect opportunity to unleash your cooking creativity. Kids love food that doubles as entertainment or art, so go wild when making food and the birthday cake. The best part is that food that looks cool can sometimes get by without tasting great, while if your attempt at an awesome cake didn't quite turn out, you will be forgiven if the cake tastes great. Does this Spark an idea?
Grinning Apple Bites
Perfect for a clown party or as a side item for any kid party menu is the funny-looking and relatively healthy option of Grinning Apple Bites. All you need are red delicious apples, peanut butter (or a peanut butter-like substitute for kids with a peanut allergy) and marshmallows. Slide the apple into thin pieces, coat with a thin lining of peanut butter and then place marshmallows in to create teeth. Two apple slices form the lips, and the marshmallows form the teeth for this grin. Customize with various shapes and sizes of marshmallows.
Design Your Own
Allow kids to design their own food, such as pizza. Give them each a circular pita bread and let them choose exactly what they want on top by setting out all the possible toppings in a row, such as cheese, pepperoni, peppers, onions and many more. Have them make a design, face or other idea on their pizza out of toppings. The birthday cake can also be utilized in the same way. Give each child a slice of cake with ice cream, and allow them to again select toppings, using items like gummy bears, some of those leftover miniature marshmallows, chocolate chips and sprinkles.
Gelatin Aquarium
A creative idea that offers room for adaptation is the gelatin aquarium. For a simple aquarium, you can place gummy fish into the gelatin when in its liquid state. Blue gelatin works best to resemble water. You can also include other treats into the aquarium, such as licorice as coral reef or chocolate covered raisins as rocks.
Porcupine Fruit
A healthy summer birthday party option is a fruit porcupine. Cut a large pineapple or watermelon in half, and place flat side down on a tray. You'll need plenty of smaller fruits as well as toothpicks to stick into your "porcupine." Put a small piece of fruit on the end of the toothpicks, such as grapes, strawberries, cherries, pineapple chunks, peach slices or anything your child likes. Then stick each toothpick into the "porcupine" so that the toothpick "spikes" are standing straight up.
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