FROZEN Cake and Birthday Party

A FROZEN Cake complete with a candy ice palace and Royal Icing snowflakes. Perfect for a FROZEN Birthday Party for a child who loves Elsa, Anna, and Olaf too!

Frozen cake and dessert table

As always, I’m behind in posting, but I wanted to document Ava’s 3rd Birthday. She requested a Disney’s FROZEN Birthday Party, and I happily obliged. There were so many cute FROZEN Birthday party ideas on Pinterest, and with her birthday being in December there was no shortage of snowflake decor! A local craft store had a great sale on snowflake ornaments, and I went a little overboard but justified that I will be able to use them every year to decorate the house or the Christmas tree.

Typically December birthdays are hard. As a parent, I’m always trying to find that balance of making her feel special and separate her birthday from Christmas. It makes a notoriously hectic time of year even crazier for our family. That being said, having a December birthday actually makes throwing a FROZEN Birthday Party easier! The stores are bursting with adorable snowflake party decorations.

For this party, I designed a FROZEN Dessert Table, complete with FROZEN Cake Pops and Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies. The main focus of the dessert table is the FROZEN Cake. For the FROZEN Cake topper, I made Elsa’s Ice Candy to create a FROZEN ice palace for the Elsa and Anna figurines. I also decorated the cake and cake pops serving tray with Royal Icing snowflakes. The details of each element are below.

I love the movie FROZEN, and had so much fun coming up with ideas for this party! The music from this movie is obviously iconic, and I loved fitting lines from the movie or lyrics to fit items on the dessert table. Ava was thrilled with everything!

Although FROZEN 2 is now popular, many of these ideas can be adapted to the new movie. Even the cake could be decorated with figurines from FROZEN 2.

FROZEN Birthday Invitations

Frozen Birthday Invitations

This party was just for family, so I sent out an Evite with the party details. I designed a FROZEN Birthday Invitation to upload to the Evite and to print out for Ava’s baby book (it goes up to age 5). The invitation gives the guests a preview of what to expect at the party. I used similar colors and fonts when designing the food labels for the FROZEN Dessert Table.

FROZEN Birthday Decorations

Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna cardboard sign hanging on front door

To welcome guests to the party, I made this Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post sign out of cardboard. I used a Sharpie for the lettering and some plain baker’s twine to hang it on our wreath hanger and to hang the “and Sauna” portion of the sign. I also added some cotton balls around the sign for the snow. Most likely I saw this idea online, but I can’t remember the source.

frozen birthday dessert table

Snowflake Ornaments

As I’ve done with decorations for previous birthday parties, I hung snowflake ornaments from the ceiling using small clear Command hooks with clear fishing line. I also got some iridescent curling ribbon, curled it gently with scissors, then hung it from the ceiling with clear Scotch tape. This added a little more sparkle and interest.

I strung the snowflake ornaments on fishing line and hung them from the top of the mini blinds so the snowflakes looked like they were floating in the windows. I also hung them from the chandelier in my dining room.

snowflake ornaments hanging from a chandelier

Snowflake DIY Window Clings

I also used another trick I found online for DIY Window Clings. I’m not sure of the exact tutorial I followed but this one is similar. I printed out snowflake designs on white printer paper, then placed a piece of waxed paper on top. Then I took different colors of fabric paint and traced the snowflake pattern and let that dry. Once the paint dries, I carefully peeled the designs off the paper and then stuck them to the windows. You can see them on the large window in my dining room.

view of dining room decorated with snowflake ornaments

Table Decorations

I like to use disposable table covers to decorate at birthday parties. They are a very inexpensive way to add color to room, and they make clean up super easy! I used different shades of blue for the table covers on the different tables, as well as one for my kitchen peninsula.

white popcorn and Elsa's ice candy on kids table

I included some white popcorn on some of the tables, as well as some leftover Elsa’s Ice Candy that I didn’t need for the cake. It’s basically homemade rock candy in sheet form (recipe below).

Frozen birthday table decorations

I found the cutest snowflake plates that I just had to have. We used large plates for the food and smaller plates for the desserts. I chose plain blue and white napkins.

napkins and snowflake paper plates

FROZEN Birthday Favors

I usually like to do a favor for parties. For my sister’s Bridal Shower it was a wrapped sugar cookie with royal icing. Other times, I have a stack of clear goodie bags for guests to take home leftover desserts from the dessert table. For this party, I decided to make little favor bags for the kids with stickers and some other little trinkets. I decorated each bag with foam star stickers and used them as place cards for the kids’ table.

frozen party favors for kids on table

FROZEN Themed Signs and Subway Art

Frozen subway art and hanging snowflake ornament

I found so many cute sign ideas online, so I used that inspiration to design my own signs in Powerpoint and print them on white cardstock. I then framed the signs and used them to decorate.

snowflake plates and frozen subway art

Did I mention how much I love this movie?!

frozen subway art

When I saw this Melted Snowman idea, I couldn’t resist. I just put a whole, peeled carrot inside a beverage dispenser with water. The label includes the tagline, “some birthdays are worth melting for.”

melted snowman water in beverage dispenser

For all of the little food labels (or drink label in this case), I purchased neat blue and purple glitter and textured cardstock from a local craft store. Then I printed out all of my labels that I designed in Powerpoint on white cardstock and cut them out by hand. I used photo adhesive squares to attach them to the thick cardstock.

melted snowman water in beverage dispenser

FROZEN Dessert Table with FROZEN Cake

I made a crepe paper tassel banner for the front of the dessert table. To do this, I took strips of crepe paper (streamers) and cut them into smaller strip, then twisted them at the half way point and looped them onto plain bakers twine. With it being around the holidays, I used some silver tinsel and added it into some of the tassels for a little sparkle.

frozen dessert table

Being December, I was able to find Twinkle Fluff in a craft store for decorating Christmas villages, but plain batting for stuffing pillows would have worked too. I used it to decorate the top of the table to look like snow.

frozen dessert table

To go with Olaf’s line from the movie, “My Own Personal Flurry,” I stuffed Twinkle Fluff inside this fun glass jar with an Olaf figurine and a small tree from my Christmas village.

Olaf's My Own personal flurry

I purchased some blue rock candy on a stick to look like ice, and labeled it with the “Now That’s Ice” line that Kristoff says in the movie.

blue rock candy

Again since it was December, I was able to find these Hershey kisses that were perfectly colored to fit the theme. These are Cookies and Cream Kisses. I’m not sure if you can find them in stores year round.

cookies and cream blue colored hershey kisses

These plain mini marshmallows are made to look like snowballs with the label, “Do you wanna build a snowman?”

white mini marshmallows with sign do you wanna build a snowman
3 tiered server with soft frosted sugar cookies

Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies

up close of 3 tiered server with soft frosted sugar cookies

I used this recipe for Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies to make these cookies in different shades of blue and purple. I decorated the tops with white sugar pearls. These cookies are so good, and I love that the frosting and sprinkles can be customized to fit any party theme. They’re also easy for guests to take home in little goodie bags at the end of the party. I found snowflake goodie bags, yet another bonus of Ava’s birthday being around the holidays!

frozen themed soft frosted sugar cookies

FROZEN Cake Pops

For the cake pops, I mushed up a single 9-inch layer of baked cake and formed into balls (see FROZEN Cake Decorations section for details on the cake). I used Pure White Vanilla Flavored Candy Wafers, which are designed for chocolate fountains. This was a tip from one of my Mothers of Preschoolers friends who owns a bakery. It was the smoothest white chocolate I’ve worked with yet.

I thought this label was sort of cute and puny, “Why have a ballroom with no (cake) balls?”

frozen cake pops

To make the cake pops, I dipped a cake pop stick into the melted white chocolate, then stuck the stick into a cake ball. When it hardens, the chocolate helps secure the stick into the cake pop. After that, I carefully coated the cake ball by rolling it in the warm melted white chocolate.  I then set them, stick straight up in the air, on a piece of waxed paper, and immediately sprinkled them with colored sugar. If you wait more than a minute or so, the chocolate will set up and the sugar will not stick.  I have never made cake pops that stand up on their sticks yet. That makes me nervous!

frozen cake pops

Each cake pop was placed in a silver foil candy cup. I decorated the serving tray with colored glitter cardstock and then arranged Royal Icing snowflakes (see below) around the cake pops.

I didn’t make these for this party, but these Oreo Truffles would have fit the theme perfectly! I have all my tips for truffle making in my Oreo Truffles post, including how to add luster dust to truffles.

Oreo truffles with luster dust

FROZEN Cake Decorations

The real start of the dessert table, in my opinion, was the FROZEN Cake. In developing a design, I looked all over the internet for FROZEN Cake ideas. I pulled from many different sources and a few ideas of my own. I wanted the cake to be simple to execute but not look simple. This ended up being my favorite cake I’ve made so far!

Frozen Cake

The FROZEN Cake

For her FROZEN Birthday Cake, Ava asked for a chocolate. As I’ve mentioned before, when I’m getting ready for a party, especially one like this with extensive decorations, I take as many short cuts as I can. One of my biggest time savers is using boxed cake mixes. I prefer Duncan Heinz brand. I made two boxes of mix divided into four 9-inch layers: three for the cake and the 4th layer for the FROZEN Cake Pops (details above for how I made the Cake Pops).

The cake was frosted with my favorite go to Easy Vanilla Buttercream.  It’s a super simple and quick recipe that doesn’t require any heating or cooking steps. This is particularly important when I’m decorating and run out of buttercream. It’s easy for me to whip up another batch to finish a cake decorating project. I added untinted buttercream between each layer, then covered the entire cake in untinted buttercream.

Frozen cake on dessert table

I wanted to do rosettes on the sides of the cake in an ombre pattern using a blue color palette. Rosettes are so forgiving and simple but give a really pretty look to a cake. I used Wilton gel food coloring to tint the buttercream. To make the rosettes on the sides of the cake, I used a Wilton 2D tip.

I decorated the top of the cake with FROZEN figurines, Cake Sparkles, Sugar Pearls, Elsa’s Ice Candy, and Royal Icing snowflakes. By using figurines from the second movie, this cake could easily be transformed into a FROZEN 2 Birthday Cake.

FROZEN Cake Topper – Elsa’s Ice Candy

closer view of frozen cake

For the “ice” candy, I followed this recipe. I used a considerable amount of non-stick Canola cooking spray, and it affected the color of my candy. There were brownish greasy areas caused by pooled cooking spray in certain spots. I would recommend using it sparingly or using a paper towel to wipe the pan after spraying to ensure the pan is greased evenly. I’ve made this note in the recipe card.

Also, my candy ended up being a greenish-blue because I didn’t add quite enough food coloring. I would have preferred it to be more blue, so I recommend adding more color if you think yours has a greenish look. The untinted candy is sort of yellow, so adding a small amount of blue makes it green, but if you add more I’m sure it would look more blue.

Elsa’s Ice Candy ended up being the perfect addition to the FROZEN Cake topper to transform it into an ice palace! I placed one piece of candy flat on the top of the cake for Elsa to stand on. For the other pieces of candy, I stuck them vertically into the cake all around Elsa. I used little shards and large ones. These are very sharp and rock hard, so be careful when breaking them up. I was envisioning the scene where Anna finds Elsa in her magically created palace, so I positioned Anna off to the side as a visitor in this FROZEN Cake castle!

While you’ll notice in photos above that I put this rock candy on the tables as decoration, I chose pieces that were smooth and would be safe for a child to pick up. I would not recommend leaving a child unattended with this candy though! It is as hard as hard candy so certainly could be a choking hazard in a very young child. I don’t think anyone even took any of the candy I had set out, as it was more for decoration.

Frozen cake

Elsa’s Ice Candy

Meghan
Similar to rock candy, this sheet of hard candy can be tinted a light blue and broken into pieces to create a magical ice palace for Elsa on a FROZEN Cake or FROZEN Ice Cream Cake! The candy can be served alone as well.
5 from 3 votes
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Cool Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 20 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 12

Equipment

  • Candy thermometer

Ingredients
  

  • 3 3/4 cups of white sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup of light corn syrup
  • 1 cup water
  • Blue or turquoise liquid or gel food coloring
  • Flavored extract (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Prepare a large, sided baking sheet by spraying with nonstick cooking spray. Use a paper towel to rub the spray around on the pan to ensure even coverage and prevent pooling of the spray.
  • Add the ingredients to a large pot with a candy thermometer on the side. Heat over medium, stirring occasionally to help the sugar dissolve.
  • Bring the mixture to a boil until it reaches 300 degrees F. If you are not using a candy thermometer, at this point the candy will harden into threads when dropped into cold water. The candy needs to get to temperature to properly harden.
  • Once the mixture reaches 300 degrees F, remove it from heat and stir in food coloring and flavor extract (if using). Pour the liquid sugar into the prepared baking sheet. Allow it to cool at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Once set, it will be rock hard and can be broken into pieces.

Notes

Source: Adapted from Pam’s Party and Practical Tips
You’re Gonna Bake It After All
bakeitafterall.com
Keyword appetizer, birthday, candy, dessert, gluten free, party

FROZEN Cake Topper – Royal Icing Snowflakes

These snowflakes were super easy to make but added so much to the FROZEN Cake theme! I printed a template for the snowflakes to put under waxed paper as a guide for piping. I don’t remember where I got mine so I linked a similar template. Then, I made outline consistency Royal Icing and piped it onto the waxed paper, tracing over the snowflake shapes, and adding a white sugar pearl to the center. I let these sit overnight to dry then carefully peeled them off of the waxed paper. I used these snowflakes to decorate the FROZEN Cake and also the tray of FROZEN Cake Pops.

zoomed in top of frozen cake

FROZEN Birthday Party Summary

Looking back on this party, it was one of my favorite parties to plan. The songs from the movie ran through my head while I worked on the party printables, hung snowflakes, and decorated desserts. As a 3 year old, Ava was amazed at how our home was transformed into her own personal ice palace. It meant so much to me to be able to plan this party for her.

Ava in her Elsa braid, admiring her FROZEN Cake and Dessert Table!

zoomed out of entire frozen dessert table

It’s hard to believe my first baby is now 3!  She loved her party, but now I fear I’ve set the bar too high.  It’s only May, and she’s already asking for a Cinderella party this December.  Better get to work! 🙂 UPDATE: See the details of her Cinderella Cake and Birthday Party!

Frozen Cake & Birthday Pin

Looking for more themed Cakes and Parties?

Check out these other cakes and parties:
Under the Sea Birthday Party
Mermaid Ice Cream Birthday Cake
Very Hungry Caterpillar Cupcake Cake
Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party
Bridal Shower Dessert Table
Penelope Bird Cake and Cookies
Daniel Tiger Cake and Birthday Party
Winter Wonderland First Birthday Party
Cinderella Cake and Birthday Party
Sesame Street Birthday Party
Tea Party Ideas for Kids
Holiday Party Desserts
My Little Pony Rainbow Unicorn Ice Cream Cake
Rainbow Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches
Painted Rainbow Cookies
Painted Watercolor Cookies



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