Decorating Dilemma--No Cakes Allowed.
Decorating By cakes4ck Updated 11 Mar 2009 , 4:29pm by cakes4ck
My dd wants to have her 5th birthday party at a skating rink this year. We have always had large parties at our house, with food, games, and of course cake. Even though stressful, they have been a lot of fun for all of us as the kids pick the theme and help me plan.
However, the rink will not allow any cakes or cupcakes be brought in. They will allow rice krispies or cookies. So what should I do? One of the funnest things for me is designing a cake and seeing her expression. However, I won't get that. I thought maybe making a roller skate out of rice krispies and using fondant to cover it. Will this work? Never covered rice krispies before. I could do the cookies, but just not as cool. However, she loves cookies.
Another thought is to go to a nearby park and have cake and ice cream afterwards.
Idk. Maybe, I could do cupcakes for her pre-k class to satisfy my decorating dilemma.
I would say, go somewhere else. Unless you are willing to give in.. Rice Kripies is not the same as cake. What is the reason for their paranoia ??
I would imagine they don't want the crumbs, plates, forks...etc.. cupcake wrappers to deal with.
I would serve cake and ice cream at another location. Years ago my son thought it would be awesome (he was 4, what can I say??) to have his b'day party at McD's. They had no problem with me bringing in the cake and actually it was not a bad deal at all. I bought Happy Meals and the kids played in the play area and I had no mess in the house!
How about decorated sugar cookies in the shape of a stacked cake and then you can pipe Happy Birthday ????? on them?
1) Go to another venue or 2) Have just a few friends over or family to the house for a dinner for her (let her pick the menu) & have cake there
i would have the cake at home after dinner. maybe make cookies as a goody bag for her friends? since it might be difficult to get the friends back to the house to join in with the cake.
xx
If she really wants to go skating, and your only hesitance is that you won't get to do a cake, I would say go skating. Choose what is most important to her.
Could you ask if you could bring the cake and not cut it, and if it isn't too much trouble or too much cake have some pre cut in bags for the kids to take home.
I don't know about you but I always end up with at least 2 cakes for each of my kids birthday (sometimes more), one for the house, one for the party, one for the grandparents house - you could use the same cake twice!
Another option is make the rice crispies in cake tins so that they are the exact shape of a cake and then decorate them in the same way you would decorate the cake - or would the skating rink be unhappy with that?
I recently went through something similar. My friend was having a party for her daughter and really wanted me to make the cake but the venue says they don't allow any other food or cake brought in with their reason being insurance reasons, they didn't want to have a problem if anybody got sick.
So instead of changing the party, I made her a cake to have at home. If your daughter really wants the skating party, can you have a small get together at your home with her friends or even just your family. I know it stinks, I'm finding that more and more venues are not allowing outside food brought in. 
I wish I knew where I saw it, maybe on here, but the cake was colored and frosted like a two layer cake, but it was made out of rice krispies.
It was really cute. I would also tell my daughter about this ahead of time so she is not disappointed. She will probably tell her friends invited about it, with a "but my mom is going to do something really cool".
it's all in how you present it. Stick with the rink and respect their guidelines.
Then no one will wonder where the real cake is!
Make a cake out of rice crispies! I recently did a 6 tier wedding cake out of RCT - far easier to work with than regular cake. I was surprised at how big of a hit it was at a wedding.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-612885-.html
If she really wants to go skating, and your only hesitance is that you won't get to do a cake, I would say go skating. Choose what is most important to her.
Totally agree with that one. I know not being able to decorate a cake is a bummer, but that's not what's important. I do agree that if you can do some spectacular cookies you can get just as much "wow" factor. To up the wow factor, I'd construct a really impressive display for the cookies.
I would be careful with decorating RKT as a cake, until you confirm with the venue that the FROSTING is not part of what is forbidden. I would worry that you would show up with a clever and beautifully decorated "cake" made of RKT, and they would say: "No, you can't serve that" and you would say "But it's RKT, you told me I could serve RKT" and they would respond "Not if they are covered in icing!" Just check it out first, if you go that route.
BTW of course if they allow you to use frosting on something, you can always make your cake out of stacked cookies. I have read threads about that here. They stacked 4-5 giant cookies for people who simply did not care for cake. Fondant would taste good on cookies, if the venue states that fondant is ok but icing is not.
I do think there should be something at the rink, whether cookie display or RKT or cookie "cake" (if they allow it) even if you also invite people to come for real cake somewhere else, unless that "somewhere else" is literally right outside the rink. I can't imagine people relocating from the rink to your home or a park just to eat some cake...they'd most likely pack it in at that point IMO, except for those closest to you. Keep the blowing-out-of-the-candles at the event, as part of the party. It's always kind of the "closing event" of a party, KWIM?
dinas27, you didn't say that the RKT cake was a hit, I am so glad to hear that! You have to put that back in that post you just linked us to 
My daughter had an ice skating party, and I just went with the cake provided by the rink (ice cream cake from a local bakery that bakes and makes all ice cream from scratch anyway, so it was delish). She had her heart set on an ice skating party and I wasn't going to compromise that because I like to make her cake. I did make ice skate cookies in individual bags as favors though.
I'm surprised to har that you can't take a cake to the skating rink. All of the roller skating and ice skating rinks around me will allow you to bring in your own cake, but no other food is allowed.
Thank you all for the replies to this thread. I plan on calling the rink this weekend as they aren't open through the week. Unfortunately, we live in a small rural area and the skate rink is the closest to us at 15 min. away. There is another 50 minutes away, but not practical to ask others to drive.
She really wanted it at the ice rink (she wants to be an ice skater) 1 1/2 hours away and we thought about it, but decided it was too big of a hassle taking friends with and also don't want someone to get hurt on the ice. So we told her no to it. Therefore, roller skating is the option she chose. She has never been before, just likes to skate around the house. So, it will be a new fun adventure, I hope!
I too wondered if the icing was the big issue. So, I am calling to be sure as I don't want to do all the work and not be able to serve it. After much thinking, I wonder if anyone would come back to the house or a park as in the rink price they get a hot dog, soda, and a sucker. Plus, if I'm not doing the whole party at the house, I don't want to have to clean and deal with the mess. Neither do I want to do 2 parties...too much stress!
I am just used to doing so much more for a party...food, games, favors, etc. However, it usually costs me $200 to do all of it because we have a large family. I think I will still do favors to jazz it up a bit. Her favorite movies are "Ice Princess" and one of the Barbie movies. So, thinking I will give all the little ones somethings to go with that theme.
If I can't do a cake or rice crispy cake then, I will probably make her a small cake to enjoy on her birthday with our immediate family. Don't know what a cookie cake is.
I usually don't mind change, just hate to give up control I guess. (part of OCD).LOL
thanks again
Christy
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