A friend of mine owns a small childrens birthday party businness that teaches kids how to cook simple, yummy, and quick dishes themselves. Basically she goes in with all the supplies for each child, children decorate their "chef" hats, she demos the "how-tos" of the recipe, and the kids make thier own dish from scratch. She is considering adding a "cake decorating" option to her parties as they are primarily entree type dishes right now.

Any thoughts and/or ideas on how this couldd be incorpoarted? Any and all ideas/thoughts welcomed. TIA!!!

Are the kids baking, icing, covering in fondant, and embellishing? Or just decorating?

I did Birthday parties for a while that were for decorating. It ended up being cost prohibitive because I wasn't really making anything for my time. I stopped doing them.

I do kid's birthday parties. I charge $20 per child with a minimum of $200. Every child gets their own 6" cake (one layer) and an 8" box to take it home. I use cheap styrofoam 7" plates to put the cakes on. Get a bucket of pre-made Sam's frosting for $30, make up about 5 different colors. Have the bags already filled (and rubber-band so they don't squeeze the frosting out of the top).

I show them how to frost, then use the bag to decorate. I limit the tips they use...a number 16 and 3. Then let them loose with decorating. Takes about 1 1/2 hours with opening presents. I usually get about 2 parties out a bucket of frosting. And while they are decorating their cakes, I decorate the party cake...a simple 1/4 sheet cake with roses on it.

I do kid's birthday parties. I charge $20 per child with a minimum of $200. Every child gets their own 6" cake (one layer) and an 8" box to take it home. I use cheap styrofoam 7" plates to put the cakes on. Get a bucket of pre-made Sam's frosting for $30, make up about 5 different colors. Have the bags already filled (and rubber-band so they don't squeeze the frosting out of the top).

I show them how to frost, then use the bag to decorate. I limit the tips they use...a number 16 and 3. Then let them loose with decorating. Takes about 1 1/2 hours with opening presents. I usually get about 2 parties out a bucket of frosting. And while they are decorating their cakes, I decorate the party cake...a simple 1/4 sheet cake with roses on it.

Mac, that makes more sense than what we did. I baked ahead 4" rounds and had them on 6" cardboard rounds. I iced and covered in fondant for the kids. At the party I provided embellishments, icing in piping bags, and fondant. THEN had 6" boxes for them to take their cakes home in. PLUS I decorated an 8" round for the party (fondant and all).

Fondant definitely makes it less cost efficient. If I have left over "Duff roses" from other cakes, I let them use them but mainly after I get the larger cake frosted, I make buttercream roses for them.

I have been doing these parties for about 5 years. Learned alot from when I first started. The kids don't care about "fancy", they just want to decorate a cake. And the cake they take home becomes their "gift bag from the party". I clean up and all the parents do is bring their camera (and some snacks if they want). I do provide generic party plates and forks for the party that I get at the $1 store.

Here's a link to what the cakes looked like that we did. http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1922969

Do you have to have a license to do this ?

I do this at the commercial kitchen that I rent for my business...so I am licensed and inspected.