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Cake Decorating for Kids

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Mike’s been gone all week (he gets back tonight). Emma is a HUGE Daddy’s Girl, and to get her out of mourning mode I suggested that we bake and decorate a cake. I originally intended to make and decorate a cake similar to her last birthday cake, which Emma also helped me make (incidentally also while Mike was out of town) and talks about all the time. We baked the same cake, but the thought of decorating it with all that stickiness on a Monday morning all over the counters AND Johnny (now old enough to be much too helpful) was a bit much, so we came up with this equally fun and tasty but much less work-intensive and messy alternative.

Cake Decorating for Kids

materials for preschool cake decorating

MATERIALS:

We mixed up the pudding, divided it into four bags, and added food coloring. Emma squished the food coloring around until it was adequately mixed (incidentally we could have mixed up the pudding the same way – see this post – but opted not to this time, mainly because I didn’t think of it until the ingredients were already in our large Pyrex measuring cup):

mixing colorsmixed colors

One of the yellowish shades was meant to be green, but we didn’t put much food coloring in it at the beginning and then Emma decided she quite liked the resulting very pale shade of green.

We cut a small triangle off of one bottom corner of each bag so that Emma could help me pipe the pudding onto the cake as frosting. The end result was both pretty (see top photo) and tasty:

eating cakeeating cake

This was actually the first time my children have each finished a slice of cake AND asked for seconds. Usually they have a bewildering lack of interest in cake.

This was a fun activity that we will definitely be repeating. If you do it, be sure to keep any leftovers in the fridge since pudding is meant to be refrigerated.

If you homeschool, there are plenty of ways to turn this into an activity within a unit on measurements, color mixing, fluid mechanics, textures, aesthetics, chemistry, nutrition…

MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

15 thoughts on “Cake Decorating for Kids”

  1. I love that idea! I have never been a fan of frosting, but pudding–good pudding is even better than icecream, in my opinion. I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to do it with my students, but Marat and I will definitely be getting some pudding-covered cake soon :)

  2. You are such a fun mom…I love all the activities you have going on for your kids. I think my little one will enjoy getting messy with this one.

  3. I know all about kids who are much too helpful. :) I’m enjoying the fact that now that my kids are 5 and 3, they’re almost the right amount of helpful in cooking excursions. I love the cake – it is beautiful! And I’m impressed by your ambition with a husband out of town and a new baby. :)

  4. You are much braver than I am. When we made Hubby’s birthday cake a few weeks ago, everyone had an ingredient to put in the bowl and helped with the mixer. I iced the cake and they each put on some sprinkles.

  5. Beautiful cake.. Emma did a wonderful job mixing the pudding and decorating the cake… Glad to see they enjoyed it.. I’ve been meaning to cook a cake and perhaps I will see if Wee Man would like to try this one…

  6. Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog

    Fabulous idea — especially while Mike is away! Looks like Emma came out of mourning mode quite easily. How bizarre that they are usually uninterested in cake… Emily is the same way about cotton candy. I bet now there will be lots of renewed interest! Yummy!!

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