Sam’s Treasure Hunt Birthday Party was a huge success! Treasure map invitations, treasure chest cake and a watermelon pirate ship.

Sam’s Treasure Hunt Birthday Party

Sam turned 6 today and on Sunday we had a joint party with his best friend Keone. We went with a Treasure hunt theme as we were having it at the Yallingup Maze and thought we could give the kids treasure maps to lead them to the piñata we would set up. It was a great idea in theory, well until the kids found all the hidden maps before we started the hunt, instead of in the order we planned them to be found. I think it worked out in the end, cos the kids ran around for a couple of hours looking for a treasure that didn’t exist. A great way to burn off the sugar found in the treasure chest cake and piñata.

Treasure Chest Cake

The cake turned out to be a lot easier than I had anticipated, it’s made from 3 square cake tins and then a slice tin for the lid. I cut the cake tins into 3 ‘bricks’ essentially and built a rectangle with an empty centre. I filled the centre with chocolate gold coins, lolly snakes and maltesers. Once the kids had sung happy birthday I just lifted the top and they all dug in to the sugary treasure. This was a great way of getting out of cutting cake for 30 kids. The parents were all keen on a piece though. I have included the cake and icing recipe I used, I apologise as I have only included a Thermomix version, until I bought my Thermomix my cakes were very average and so I don’t want to attempt to write a non-Thermomix recipe, but I am sure everyone has a classic chocolate cake recipe up their sleeve!

Watermelon Pirate Ship

I carved this pirate ship out of the biggest watermelon I could find, which wasn’t very big actually, possibly as watermelons have only just come in to season here. It worked out fine though and fit a heap of freshly cut fruit. The mast was made with some dowel from Bunnings, I just grabbed the thinnest they had, I think it cost me about $1.85 and I was able to easily snap it to the length I needed. I Googled pirate fonts and hand wrote the kid’s names on the flag along with a smiling skull and cross bones. I am sure you could do a better job than this, but a couple of 6 year olds loved it.

My biggest tip is use a good paring knife to carve your watermelon! I started with my large chef’s knife and it was terrible, couldn’t get nice curves with it, once I changed to a paring knife it was much easier! I would also recommend using a melon scoop to get little balls of watermelon out as you go. The watermelon from mine turned into a bowl of mush as I didn’t have one and used a spoon, it couldn’t really be used for the party. Here is a pic and link to the knife I used (the little one at the bottom)(just speak to Vivi and ask her for her watermelon carving knife ha ha);

Treasure Chest Cake

Print Recipe

Description

Ingredients

Scale

CAKE:

120g butter, roughly chopped
2 eggs
100g milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g sugar
120g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
30g cocoa powder

ICING:

400g sugar
4 teaspoons corn flour
1 tablespoon cocoa
150g butter
40g milk

DETAILS:

1 packet fondant icing
icing sugar for dusting
1 teaspoon yellow food colouring

TREASURE:

chocolate gold coins
maltesers
lolly snakes

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

CAKE:

Pre heat oven to 180°C.

Place butter into mixing bowl and melt 2 min / 60°C / speed 4. If needed, scrape down sides and repeat for another minute.

Add remaining ingredients and mix 20 sec / speed 5, scrape down sides and mix a further 10 sec / speed 5.

Grease a square cake tin with butter and then sprinkle lightly with either flour or cocoa. Pour in batter and bake 25-35 minutes, until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool in tin for 5 minutes then on a wire rack.

Once cooled cut into thirds to assemble treasure chest cake.

ICING:

Place sugar into mixing bowl and blitz 30 sec / speed 10, scrape down sides and repeat until fine.

Add cornflour, cocoa, butter and milk and mix 30 sec / speed 4.

Ice cake once cake has cooled and then place cake in the fridge to set firm. Use this icing between the layers of cake ‘bricks’ also.

DETAILS:

Dust your bench with a little icing sugar then roll out the fondant, add food colouring and knead to combine and turn fondant yellow. Apologies, this is very messy. I try to add the colouring a little at a time in the centre of the fondant, then fold around and knead gently to combine.

Roll out thinly and cut out straps and key hole. Apply to cake while icing is still wet.

Notes

You will need three of the above cakes to create the cake as pictured above. Plus the same recipe baked in a rectangle slice tin for the lid. You will have one cake ‘brick’ left over, I crumbled this around the base.

Sam’s Treasure Hunt Birthday Party