8958

Lord of the Rings -4- Helm's Deep Cake

June 2004

Stephanie in Bristow, VA USA

LOTR party - 4 yr. old boy. I know this is young, but with four boys in the house, anything with war scenes catches on. My husband had just been laid off, so I had to work inexpensive.

For invites, we printed a picture off the internet (3" x 4") for each invite. Then I made a Word document with 2 columns, printed the party info on the right column, then printed it directly onto the sheet of paper with the picture. I cut out the picture with text and glued it on a 1/2 sheet of card stock paper. For the Where portion, I put MIDDLE EARTH (conveniently moved to [my address] for this party).    

For party bags, I printed scenes from the movie and pasted them onto brown paper bags. I made a homemade dragon pinata out of paper mache (3 layers of paper, letting each dry in between) filled with candy. The candy that came out of the pinata went into the party bags. We had an archery contest using a bow and arrow set from the dollar store. At the end of the party, each kid got a bow and arrow to take home.

For the other game, I bought 3 packages of those little gold wedding rings from a party supply store (the kind you see at weddings). We threw them into the grass and then had the kids look for them (they're not as easy to find as you'd think!). Those, too, went into the party bags. I then let the birthday boy throw one of his rings into Mount Doom (one of those baking soda and vinegar volcanoes). The looks on their faces when it erupted were priceless!    

For the cake, I tried to make Helm's Deep. The base was 2 square cakes stacked and iced. I then measured the height and drew a wall with a corner turret for each side on wax paper. I melted 2 7-oz bars of chocolate and spread it out on the wax paper within the drawn walls (after flipping the paper over so the marker would not get into the icing!). The chocolate was very thick, so it was easy to spread it out into the exact shape I needed. After the chocolate cooled, I peeled off the wax paper and had 4 chocolate walls…Helm's Deep! (It sounds difficult but it only took me 30 minutes to make the walls.) I used half a graham cracker rounded at the top for a door and another half for a drawbridge leading up to it.    

The kids all enjoyed the party, even the ones who had not seen the movie since the dragons and castles theme was familiar. Total cost of party including bows & arrows, rings, chocolate, and cake: $25 for 12 kids.

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