The earth has revolved around the Sun 360 degrees – and my baby girl is now 1 year old! It’s been an amazing year – so many ups and downs – and it was so enjoyable to get our family and friends together to celebrate the little one growing up. Of course – the girls here at iatebrisbane also saw it as a fantastic opportunity to delve into the culinary world of kids party food! This is not an area we venture into too often, namely because 2 of the 3 of us don’t have kids – yet - and my bubba has only started to appreciate the world of food. I’m sure in a few years time we will all be well versed in pumping out a few dozen chocolate crackles without raising a sweat.
I have to admit, I was a little nervous about hosting my first kids party. The memories I have of my birthday parties are strong and vivid. Mum and Dad threw wonderful soiree’s for us kids – they were awesome! So, it was only natural I would go running to Mum asking for help and inpiration.
“You’ll be fine, they’re easy” she said.
“Ha! That’s because you’ve done almost 30 of these things – and not to mention helping out for friends and cousins parties, and they were always incredible!”
After a bit of flattery, she spilled the beans on holding a successful birthday bash – and it pretty much comes down to following ”the formula”. And each mother I talked to about kids parties always seems quite happy to host parties, but rattled off a number of rules that must be adhered to to ensure that you don’t get a gaggle of whippersnappers bawling and crying blue murder by the end of the afternoon.
1. Hold it in the afternoon for a few hours
2. Have some music playing (we were lucky to have a couple talented friends with guitars!)
3. There must be fairy bread and chocolate crackles
4. There must be cake and candles - and it must look like you’ve gone to some effort (even if you haven’t!)
5. Play a couple of party games (we didn’t this time, as our birthday girl can’t even walk yet!)
6. There must be party bags – make sure there is one for every child, and each has to contain identical items to all other bags – or else they’ll all cry.
This, of course is not an extensive list, but you get the idea. I was happy to follow the hallowed party traditions passed down from our forebears. There’s something special about fairy bread – the rainbow sugar encrusted triangles of fluffy white bread, and the popping crunchy chocolate crackles, heavily laden with copha – a vegetable shortening. Recipes will be posted soon!
The cake also was something I’ve been excited about making for about… oooh 5 years or so. I challenged myself to a 3D rubber ducky cake and cake pops, and was pleased with the results! (again…. instructions to follow!) We also all pulled out our ol’ favourites – namely the peanut butter cookies and caramelised onion and goats cheese tartlettes.
I think the secret to a successful party is to let people help! For a gathering of 40 people, about 12 of them had an active hand in creating the event.
And the most important thing was everyone had a good time! No wailing kiddies – and happy friends and family! Yay!
[...] Bread seems to be a tradition at most kid’s parties in Australia. There’s nothing quite like it. It’s so crunchy and rainbowy and sugary [...]
Ahhhhh fairy bread, what great memories that gastro delight conjures. You just cant get enough fairy bread,infact why limit yourself im thinking fairy everything,fairy spread,fairy icecream,fairy fairy good…..uber awesome cake too which could be fairyeeed also. Hats off!
To say I was impressed with the rubber ducky cake is a serious understatement- well done! Just thought that now you have a toddler, I send you you through my fail safe toddler recipe. I know chicken nuggets don’t encourage culinary diversity in toddlers, but sometimes, you just have to indulge the little treasures. And these ones are home made, and not full of rubbish.
Chicken breast cut into cubes
Ritz biscuits crushed into bread crumbs
Buttermilk
Dip chicken cubes into butter milk, then roll in Ritz crumbs.
Bake in an oven (although I suppose you could probably pan fry), for about 20- 25 minutes.
Its that easy, and everyone loves ‘em!
PS the second last line was supposed to say Bake in an oven at 180 degrees c. Sorry!