A couple days ago I posted another circus birthday, but for a boy. This time, the circus party was for a little girl.
I definitely wanted to do circus tents again, because I loved the way my last ones turned out.
I recently bought a big assorted set of Wilton cutters. (Actually didn’t get too many duplicates, which was awesome! What does everyone do with all those duplicates anyway? I have a bag started..) Anyway, in it was a balloon cutter, and after seeing the balloon cupcakes for my last circus party, I thought the balloon would be a good addition to this cookie party.
(If I weren’t doing these for 2 year olds, I would have stuck a sting to the back of each balloon with a dab of frosting. I figured 2 year olds wouldn’t know to pull it off so I just left it out.)
I came across these adorable circus cookies by Nicole of Life’s A Batch a while back, and the mama for these cookies just loved them when I sent her the link. From these cookies I drew inspiration for the pink elephants.
We also liked the idea for popcorn buckets. I had seen these by Bridget of Bake at 350 a while back, and I also loved the ones from Life’s a Batch, so I combined the ideas into something I could create with my style of frosting/icing.
For the actual popcorn kernels, I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted to do. First I tried using only icing, and planned on layering blobs to create “popcorn.” But because my icing is similar to glaze, it wasn’t holding it’s popcorn shape the way I wanted.
I scraped that idea (literally) and kind of “gave up” and turned to my trusty buttercream… just started creating my blobs. They were kind of bumping into each other and not really looking like kernels anymore.. They needed butter. Problem was, I didn’t have anymore buttercream to dye yellow for the butter. I definitely didn’t want to make a whole new batch just for a couple tablespoons needed. So I winged it and started using icing. Not something I’ve ever done before. I outline in buttercream, fill in icing, and use buttercream for details. Icing on top of blobs of buttercream? What the hell is that?
I’ll tell you. It’s butter. MELTED butter.
Perfection. Accidental perfection.
Cookie Carrie 
You amaze me!! I would have whipped up another batch of buttercream to use 0.5% for the butter. But you…you are so ingenious! The butter is perfect! Love the whole set 🙂
haha see world!! sometimes being lazy pays off 😉
These are just as adorable as the Circus cookies for the little boy!
thanks Paula!
So cute! I love the elephants! What brand of red color do you use? I’ve tried two so far and cannot get that perfect red you’ve got going!
Thanks Angela! And ugh red and I are not friends. I use Americolor gel paste. It’s much more concentrated than the Wilton red. But you still have to use a lot, especially for buttercream… I also recently started adding a tad of brown when I want a deep, dark red. I got the idea from Lilaloa, but also when I made red velvet cake (which has cocoa in it). Give that a try, it might help!
I have the Americolor Super Red, guess I’m just not using enough! I’ll definitely give adding brown a shot. Thanks!!
Yeah it seems like you get to a point where you add more and more and it doesn’t get any darker, but just keep adding.. also it seems to darker after a while so sometimes I let it sit for a few minutes then stir it up and see if it’s better.
These turned out spectacularly! I’m so glad you linked me, as I’m grateful to have found your blog. Your cookies are too cute, and I love your style! 🙂
Aww thank you Nicole, you are too sweet!