We celebrated a birthday recently – my little girl turned six! Six! She wanted to celebrate at our neighbourhood splash pad and she requested rainbows! While many have incorporated rainbows into their party decor and it seemed like every second party in 2011 was dressed in rainbow colours, I was happy to oblige. It’s just a happy theme and the added water was a welcome relief on a hot and humid day.
Both my kids dressed in swimsuits. Maëlle added a sparkly skirt and a rainbow lei. We handed out squirt guns and applied a bunch of fun Tattly tattoos.
A week or so before the party, we made Rainbow cookies. I was inspired by these, but I decided not to make them from scratch as I was already dealing with the rainbow layers and that might have been too much to tackle at once. I find sugar cookies challenging, so I buy the Betty Crocker mix and it all turned out perfectly (see instructions below).
We gave every guest a coloured sand bucket, which we lined up on the picnic table. Each bucket was filled with a few water related favours that the kids got to play with during the party. I made sure to label each bucket with their name – that way they had something to catch all the pinata candy later that afternoon.
Along with the cookies, we served a rainbow of fruit and vegetables and instead of a cake or cupcakes, the birthday girl requested a doughnut tower. The gourmet doughnuts from SuzyQ were very popular – the adults loved them as well.
I never seem to manage to get a picture of the finished food table. I’m usually getting the food there last minute, and this time the day was so hot we only brought out the doughnuts minutes before serving them. But you can see the gist of what I was going for. A simple rainbow/chevron table runner, stacked rainbow coloured plastic cups and drink dispensers. I used IKEA kids plates and cups, since they come in a rainbow of colours and are heavy enough not to blow away.
Having the party at the local park made clean-up a breeze. We had a great day and everyone enjoyed the party!
Ingredients
- your favourite sugar cookie recipe or sugar cookie mix from the grocery store
- liquid or gel food colouring in red, yellow, blue and green
Instructions
- Make your cookie dough and separate into six separate servings in a bowl
- Add food colouring to each serving and mix well. When mixing colours to get purple and orange, make sure to mix the colours in a spoon ahead of time to get an even coloured dough
- Chill your dough in the fridge for 30 minutes and then roll each serving out to about 1/4 inch thickness on a piece of plastic wrap. Make sure each piece is about the same size.
- Layer each piece on top of each other in the proper order (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red) and put in freezer for a couple of hours.
- Once solid, remove from freezer and slice dough into 1/4 inch slices with a large sharp knife. Depending on the size of your 'loaf' you can half each cookie - make sure every cookie is about the same size.
- Place cookies carefully on parchment lined cookie sheet at least 2 inches apart (my dough spread from a small rectangle into 2.5 inch round cookies). Bake according to instructions until edges turn just golden.
- Let cool completely.
Notes
If you are worried the layers won't stick, you can brush a little egg white between each layer when you assemble the cookies.
