Cake Alternatives less Messy
If you're looking for something a little more exciting or original than the traditional cake to celebrate a child's birthday, there are plenty of alternatives, both in the "still sweet and junky" category, or the "sweet and healthy" category. There are also desserts that leave less clean up for you, is that's the reason you want something other than cake with sticky frosting.
For category number one, there are a lot of alternatives that easily come to mind. Cup cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream (including ice cream cakes), pudding, cheese cakes, brownies...you get the idea. Some may sound boring, but when you bake (or buy) a giant cookie decorated to look like their favorite cartoon character, the results will be something like "COOL!" Most desserts are fully customizable to induce the "wow factor" from your child and the others at the party. Cup cakes and brownies can be cooked in cup cake pans in a vast variety of shapes, fromskullstoflowers, to fit all personality types. Ice cream can also be creatively molded, either with molds similar to cake molds, or by getting creative with cone, sprinkle, and cherry arrangements. A witch can be conjured up with a chocolate dipped waffle cone for a hat, jelly beans for eyes, and tinted coconut for hair on a scoop of mint ice cream. Pies and cheese cakes are easier to please the sense of taste, rather than to be visually interesting. The recipes to make pies or cheese cakes a little different than the traditional seem to be never ending. Pick your child's favorite flavor, and you can probably make a pie OR a cheese cake that will delight them.
For category number two, healthy, but still sweet alternatives to cake could be a bit harder to think of. However, jello, dessert pizzas, fruit arrangements, slushies, sorbets, or sherbets are all more healthy but still satisfying to kids with a sweet tooth. Jello could be topped with whipped cream, plain or tinted with food coloring. Dessert pizzas can be made in one large pie, or many individual pies that kids can decorate themselves with varieties of fruit. Fruit arrangements can be topping with chocolate, whipped cream, a sweet glaze, or just eaten plain. Slushies, sorbets, or sherbets are an excellent choice for birthdays celebrated on hotter days, and can be substituted for ice cream in more creative recipes.
All of the dessert mentioned, from pie to sorbets, have the potential to make a mess if the kids try hard enough. If easy clean up is one of your top priorities, go with jello, fruit, or cookies. The ones with the most mess potential would be anything that can melt; ice cream, slushies, sorbets, or sherbets. Pie and cheese cake also could be pretty messy, depending on what kind they are.
A final option for a sweet substitute for your child's birthday party is simple candy. You can go simple, and buy a few bags of variety mini candy bars. You can also get a little more complicated, and have the kids make the candy themselves, if they're older. Taffy is a good option if you want a hands on kind of sweet. The advantage of making candy your choice is you can give it to the kids at the end of the party and send them home with it. No mess, no sugar highs, no worries.
