Medieval Castle Cake & Brave Knights Cupcakes

Yesterday we celebrated Snuggles' 9th birthday! He requested a Knights & Dragons theme and asked if I could please make him a castle cake this year. 

At first we thought would wait until his older brothers get back from summer camp later this week to have his themed party, but at the last minute we decided to just have the celebration on his actual birthday as always and just save his brothers some cake. So, early yesterday morning, I loaded up the car and we all drove to the store for the rest of the supplies! 

I wanted to keep it a little simpler than the last castle cake I made, and preferably with a little less food coloring. I combined and/or modified some ideas I had seen online (I pinned them here) and was very happy with how the cake came together!

Here is what I ended up using: 

• 3 - packages cake mix + ingredients
• 2 - 9x9 baking pans
• 2 - 6" round baking pans
• baking spray
• Chocolate frosting
• 4 sugar cones
• gold color mist (I already had gold and silver in the cupboard and we decided that the gold looked the best)
• 2 Chessmen cookies
• 16 Chocolate Creme Oreo cookies
• 1 KitKat
• 24 KitKat minis
• 2 pretzel sticks
• candy rocks (optional) 
• Knights & Dragons Toob (optional) 

I baked one box of cake mix in each of the 9x9 bakers and split the third cake mix between the two small round pans and 8 cupcakes. 

I purchased this darling Brave Knights Cupcake Kit and used 8 of the cupcakes cases and eight toppers, saving the rest for another time. 

After the cakes and cupcakes had cooled I trimmed the tops of the cakes and flipped over one to place on the top of the other.

I decided to cut a small half circle out of each corner of the square cake for the cookie/cone towers.

I placed the 2 small circle cakes on top of the square bottom and frosted the cake with a layer of chocolate frosting. I popped it in the freezer for about 30 minutes to seal in all the crumbs while I sprayed the cones and Chessmen cookies with some gold color mist. 

I added a second layer of frosting, smoothing it out the best that I could (I stink at frosting cakes), and then placed the Oreos and Gold Sugar Cones in each corner. 

I placed the two Chessman cookies, pretzel sticks, and KitKat at the front of the cake to create the doors and drawbridge, and then finished the cake with some KitKat minis around the top edges of both cakes. 

The birthday boy took care of the rest, adding the Knights & Dragons! 

I'll be back soon with the rest of the pictures from his Medieval Knights & Dragons birthday party! 

You can scroll through our past cakes and birthday parties here. 

Missionary Saints :: St. Peter the Apostle

Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Mt. 16: 16

Over the past four years, our boys have completed Years One and Two of the Blue Knights Boys' Club twice, first in a group that was led by all of the dads on a rotating basis, and then with another group that was led by a mom.  This year our boys will finally be moving onto Year Three here at home with their Dad & I!

They are very excited, and even more so, with the knowledge that they have a new "online" group, and will each be assigned a new pen pal within the group to write on a monthly basis!  (Thanks to everyone that has sent in the registration for this Online Group!  I will be emailing you all soon with a list of all the members and pen-pal assignments.  I am also in the process of setting up the private Facebook group for this Online Club!  Thank you all for your patience!)

The third year of the Blue Knights Boys' Club is based on Missionary Saints.  I already posted our schedule and link-up dates, and you can also see that I've moved the meetings around to coincide with feast days we already celebrate.   I had to simplify this as much as possible... I am already not able to keep up with everything I would like to do with my children! ;)

Anyhow, our first Meeting was based on St. Peter!  Here is an overview of what we have been doing in honor of this great Missionary Saint:

~ Coloring Pages ~ 

St. Peter Coloring Pages in Member's Guides

St. Peter from Catholic Artworks Faithkeepers CD

Jesus Gives Peter the Keys from Catholic Moms Helper

~ Craft/Activity ~

The Leader's Guide suggests making a Fishing Pole using 3' dowels, string, duct tape, markers and 3x5 cards with various words written on them like grace, truth, goodness, virtue, etc.

However, instead of making the craft the boys actually went fishing with their Dad and my youngest brother, their Uncle David. They had so much fun, and they got to spend some special time with their Dad.  My boys do enough crafts, and I hope to incorporate more physical activities for their Blue Knights projects when the weather and our schedule allow.  (For example:  Next month is Saint Paul.  Instead of just crafting a walking stick, I am hoping that they can go on a hike with their dad instead!)

As another activity in honor of St. Peter, I planned a back-to-school field trip with a few other families, to go back to Crater Lake!  It was a gorgeous day, and the lake looked even bluer than the last time we were there in August!

Isn't it truly amazing!

The boys were very excited to spend the afternoon with their friends at the lake, and also earn a Junior Ranger patch for attending a couple of the classes and a talk on the lake! 

~ Game ~

Fishing for Men

The Leader's Guide suggests playing a Fishing For Men, which we played this last summer during some of our Saintly Summer Fun.  (You can see pictures here: Saintly Summer Fun :: Saints Peter and Paul) It has been raining here this week though, so I opted to create a Fishing for Men (Go Fish!) game based on all of the Missionary Saints that the boys will be studying this year!

Here are the cards/documents I created:

Missionary Saints #1

Missionary Saints #2

Missionary Saints #3 

(with cover card and directions)

I printed out 4 of each page and plan to eventually laminate the cards for extra durability.  The boys enjoyed their new game! 

~ Snack ~

St. Peter Cupcakes

For a Blue Knights themed snack, we choose the St. Peter Cupcakes that I had come up with this past summer.   The boys had been wanting to try out their idea of making the boats out of caramels instead of the orange candy slices we used last time.  They also wanted to color the sails/shields for the boats, using the color yellow/gold for the keys and red for the sail, representing the fact that St. Peter was a martyr.   I loved that they decided this on their own, with out any prompting or encouragement from their mom! ;)

They had so much fun flattening the caramels with a fondant roller and then molding them into the shapes of boats!

~ Additional Resources ~

Here are a few additional book suggestions on St. Peter from my boys' bookshelves:

• Saint Peter the Apostle
• The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children
• The Man Who Never Died: The Life and Adventures of St. Peter, the First Pope
• Lost in Peter's Tomb

~ Assignments and Prizes ~ 

Between now and the next meeting the boys will be working on the 10 assignments listed in their Member's guides.   I dug out an old "treasure chest" I have had since I was younger, took all my little keepsakes out of it and plan to stock it with prizes for the boys to choose from at our next "meeting" based on how many of the assignments they complete.  I have been doing something similar with the my Little Flowers Girls' Club since we started and it is always great motivation!


Note:  For those that are joining us each month and would like to share pictures from your own first meetings, here is the link-up post for this month! 

Saint Peter the Apostle, Pray for us! 

A Medieval Knights, Dragons and Castles Birthday

This year Captain choose a "Medieval Knights, Dragons and Castles" theme for his birthday celebration!  I thought it was a perfect theme, especially since we had just finished studying the Middle Ages this past year for History.   

~ Decorations ~ 

I enjoyed making birthday banners for our recent Lego and Nesting Doll birthday parties, so I thought I would try and make a Medieval Banner too!  I downloaded a "Black Knight" font and created signs using the letters for "Happy Birthday" centered on an outline of a Knights Shield.   (Here is a pdf copy of my document.)   I then made a slightly larger Knight Shield to be used as a template for the background color.  (template here)   I was able to get three Shields out of each 12x12 piece of green or blue glitter card stock.   

I punched a small hole into each corner, running white/silver ribbon through each card.   

Originally I had wanted to order Goblets from Oriental Trading, but due to the cost I decided to try and make our own.   I found some plastic wine glasses at the dollar store, and purchased some acrylic gemstones.   

I decided to have each of the kids decorate their own Goblet during the party as a fun activity.  They loved it! 

In the end I think they turned out cuter than the other option, and so much less expensive! 

~ A Medieval Feast ~ 

Captain is our meat lover, and he said he would be completely happy with just a "feast" for his birthday present, "since food is getting so expensive!"   He is such a sweetie!!  Here was his feast:

.: Medieval Feast Menu :.

Manchet (Fine White Bread)
A Variety of Meats and Game (Drumsticks & Meatballs)
Grapes
Corn on the Cob
Mixed Herbs and Greens Salad
Stuffed Eggs
Block Cheese with Swords
Olives
Baked Beans*
Wine (Sparkling Red Grape Juice)

*not exactly medieval, but a favorite of the birthday boy!

~ Castles, Knights and Dragons Candy ~ 

As you all know, I love candy molds!   I purchased the Dragon and Castle molds for this party.  (They both required a lot of melted candy, and the smaller version of the castle would have probably been perfect.) Originally my plan was to create Red and Green Dragons, and Grey castles with Black doors.

I ran out of time to prepare, so I ended up letting the kids each make their own!  The boys choose red and orange dragons and the girls wanted to make pink castles, mixing the white and red chocolates together.   They turned out cute, and total proof of how easy these are, if my kids were able to make them on their own!

Other molds that would work great for this party theme are the Friendly Dragon Candy Molds, the Dragon And Dungeon Candy Mold, the Friendly Dragon Pop Candy Molds,the 2-Inch Castle Chocolate Mold and the Knight & Mount Chocolate Mold.

~ Slaying the Dragon ~ 

A couple days before the birthday, I stopped by a local party shop (for some plastic cocktail swords) and found this cute dragon pinata at an affordable price.   I had to get him!

We went to the store and I let the boys choose "Medieval Themed" candy!   We decided on the following:

The Three Musketeers  (3 Musketeers)

The Duke of York (York Peppermint Patties)

Gold Coins (Rolos) 

Sir Tootsie of Roll  (Tootsie Rolls) 

This was a special treat, and the children all had so much fun with the pinata!

If you missed the short video of our little Rose trying to "Slay the Dragon," you can find it in this post.  It still makes me laugh!   She is so fun!  After the head was chopped off, she picked it up and chased her brothers, saying "Rargh!!!!!"

~ Birthday Gifts ~ 

Captian's main birthday present was the Catan: Cities and Knights Game Expansion for his Settlers of Catan board game.  He was so excited!!  In addition, he also received some discontinued Playmobil toys (Treasure Transport and Jousting Equipment) that I ran across at a local toy store and a few books on Explorers.  (Am I the only one that uses birthdays as an excuse to purchase more school books? ;)   He also received his first very own pair of Hockey Skates, picked out by his Daddy.   They should come in handy this coming year, since the boys are hoping to be able to play a season of hockey.   

~ The Castle Cake ~ 

I posted a picture of Captain with his cake on his birthday, in addition to the damage attack by his impatient little brother!  I also posted a tutorial on how to make this Knight's Castle Cake.  

 

I'm sure there won't be too many more years where Captain will want a "themed" birthday party... Despite the little bit of extra work, it is so worth the effort to make these childhood birthdays full of special memories for him.   He is growing up way too quickly!  

(A Knight's Castle Cake and Tutorial, and a few more pictures)