Hi all, my daughter is going to be Alice in Wonderland for Halloween and I thought it would be fun to have her little friends (she is 5) over for a halloween tea party. I am completely stumped on what to do. Does anyone have any great ideas. All I could come up with was bubble tea, and I know they eat the plates in the movie, is there a good trick to making plates out of gumpaste?
Thanks,
Chelsea

This could be SOOOO fun. Oh, I am jealous of you!

Look through Collette's book (cakes to dream on) for inspiration, and just do a cake like that, but in orange and black and purple-Halloween colors. Use lots of sparkle dusts to make it glittery, and if you can, do some wired decorations of spiders sticking out, or something like that. You can make it spooky and adorable and girly at the same time.

I wish I had a cake like that to make!

One of my books has a great idea for making plates out of gumpaste:

Cover a china plate with plastic wrap and a fine dusting of cornstarch. Roll out the paste and cover the plate. Trim the edges. Leave the to dry for 12 hours. Then turn the plate out of the mold and remove the back lining. Place on a bed of crumpled tissues so the other side will dry. Leave for another 12 hours.

Haven't actually tried doing this but hopefully should work.

You might also consider chocolate or candy melts for making your plates.

Good luck! It sounds like tons of fun!

Perhaps you could make some chocolate mice out of candy melts and fill a teapot with them - doesn't the dormouse sleep in the teapot during the tea party.

I'm not sure it would be worth making gumpaste plates - the children would not eat them anyway.

How about white rabbit or playing card shaped cookies? Even cupcakes with a fondant Cheshire cat or caterpillar sitting on top.

That's all I can think of right now!

Here's a link for making chocolate cups and saucers.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jacques-torres/chocolate-tea-cup-and-saucer-recipe/index.html