American Girl Sweet Shop

It started out innocently enough. Miss Priss needed (wanted?) a shelf to hold all of the American Girl doll food we made at Christmas, so her doll restaurant would seem more authentic. I found a Recollections “Embellishment Organizer” for 50% off at Michael’s (A LOT of assembly required). It really looked like a display at a bakery. Crafty obsessive idea brain immediately took over. Hadn’t Sewing Sister made miniature cakes out of plastic bottle tops? If I just picked up a few supplies, I bet I could make cakes. Did we really have enough American Girl doll food from Round One to fill the display? Perhaps not. And so, food production began again.

Wedding Cakes

• Locate any and all plastic bottle caps. I used caps from anything I could get my hands on like water bottles, milk bottles, vitamin jars, juice bottles, and soda bottles. The more size variety you have, the better.
• White plastic caps work the best, but I did use acrylic paint for the pale pink and pale blue cakes. It took about 3 coats of paint. If you have white bottle caps, no painting is required.

• I like 3 stacked bottle caps the best. Stack them in graduating sizes. Run a bead of hot glue around the edge of a bottle cap and press it onto the center of the top of the bottle cap that goes beneath. Repeat for all layers.

• Add decoration with the hot glue gun. I used satin flowers, 3-D flower stickers, thin lacy ribbon, and strings of mini pearls.

Cupcakes

• Collect twist off toothpaste caps. Thankfully, I had a stash of travel toothpaste tubes from the children’s last dental visit. My kids never put the lid back on the toothpaste tube anyway, so I did not think it mattered if I took the caps.

• Drop a blob of hot glue into the bottom of a toothpaste cap. Squish one 3/4″ pom pom into the cap.
• Smear a little Elmer’s glue around the top of the pom pom and sprinkle seed beads on the top.
• Add a mini 5 mm pom pom if desired.

Milkshakes

• Taller, clear caps work the best for the milkshakes. The clear caps that cover the top of non-aerosol bug spray or suntan lotion are perfect. I also used small, clear bead jars.
  
• Cut a straw to the needed length to stand in the milkshake cup. Run a small bead of hot glue on the edge of the inside of the cup and attach the straw.
• Put a blob of hot glue at the bottom of the cup and press one 3/4″ pom pom to the bottom. Add a blob of hot glue to the top of the pom pom and press another pom on top. Try to avoid getting any hot glue on the edge of the cup because it looks smeary from the outside. Repeat one more time with a third pom pom.

• Smear a little Elmer’s glue around the top of the pom pom and sprinkle seed beads on the top. I used rainbow nonpareils sprinkles on a few of the milkshakes too.
• Add a mini 5 mm pom pom if desired.

Donuts

• Put a spoonful of powdered sugar in a small Ziploc bag. Add Cheerios and shake.
• Put a spoonful of cinnamon in a small Ziploc bag. Add Cheerios and shake.
• Remove Cheerios from the bags. You may need to brush excess cinnamon and powdered sugar from the Cheerio.

Oreos

• Using a round hole puncher, punch a ton of black and white circles from foam sheet.
• With glue dots, build Oreo cookies. 2 black circles on the outside, one white circle in the center.

Pies, Cookie Tray, Sponge Cake, and Petits Fours

• Visit the original American Girl Buffet Post for directions.

Materials

• Plastic bottle caps, any and all sizes
• strings of mini pearls, thin white lacy ribbon
• mini 3-D flower stickers
• mini satin flowers
• hot glue gun
• acrylic paint (pale colors)
• 3/4″ pom poms
• 5 mm pom poms
• seed beads (variety of colors)
• rainbow sprinkles (optional)
• black and white foam sheets
• glue dots
• Cheerios, powdered sugar, cinnamon
• small mirrors, mini Altiod tins, flat wood shapes (to use as serving trays)

I have put the bakery display in Miss Priss’ room, although, I am not entirely comfortable with her actually playing with the doll food. It looked so perfect for a few short hours sitting on the shelf, untouched by little hands.