pool party... before the summer finishes

The Summer school vacation is just too long in our part of the world (12 weeks this year!) It eats up the entire summer and so summer seems to disappear all too rapidly. I dread the cold weather and rue summer's demise. Anyway, we needed to organize a birthday party for our little Miss soon-to-be-five. We'd agreed upon a pool party and needed this to happen before our neighborhood pool closes on Labor Day (September 2nd). Thankfully our cool/wet Summer abated and the weather was spectacular for the big day today. 

kid soup

It was a challenge planning a party for 20 kids, plus adults, away from our home with no refrigeration, no cooking facilities and no ready access to water or power. Hence... we ordered pizza! 

I made colorful carrot and beet dips with crudités, fruit kebabs, a giant tossed spinach salad, and pesto pasta to curb appetites until pizza arrived. A sudden dearth of available blueberries meant our rainbow kebabs lacked the blue spectrum!

I made the easiest decorated birthday cake I have ever made - with ever so many thanks to the wonderfully helpful video at 52 Kitchen Adventures. 

I frosted a yellow cake using this recipe for cake and frosting. I used the India Tree brand of natural colors to create the lovely subtle coloring. Mietta was very happy with the result.

To ensure our vegan friends did not miss out on cake, I made my first ever vegan cake! I used the recipe here for a Chocolate-Mocha Cake. Instead of instant coffee powder, Paul pulled four decaf espresso shots for me to use. I omitted the coffee from the icing and used the icing on the sides of the cake in place of the ganache. I topped the cake with chocolate-dipped strawberries. It was surprisingly OK :-)

I made some pink lemonade and we had juice and water for thirsty swimmers. As we had so many guests, I made a Pavlova too, and strew this with fruit that didn't make it onto the fruit kebabs. 

In the interests of providing a healthy - less trashy type of 'goody bag', we bought some of Alex's range of craft projects to hand out. Mietta really enjoyed the paper bag puppet kit she received for Christmas - and I had kept this in mind for such an event. We filled some goody bags with a tub of playdough and a few clay tools for the younger guests and some bags with craft paper, stickers and origami paper for the older children.

We also had some balls for each child to take home. No sweets - much to Mietta's disgust "ALL goody bags have candy!" she protested. Well yes. Most do... but I have been trying to thwart this for years! In the past, we've given out: popcorn containers filled with microwave popcorn, pencils, erasers (for a movie theme party); a bag of healthy prepackaged snacks (Annie's bunnies, raisins, etc.); novel tastes and treats from the Asian supermarket; decorated letter cookies with the appropriate letter for each guest (decorated by Luc); board books for the younger set; bubbles, balloons... It can be a challenge to think of ideas that will delight - but not end up straight in landfill or harm little tummies.

We had such a good time - a really lovely day. Our wonderful guests graciously helped out with kid wrangling, clean-up, cake dispersal and cake storage (in a nearby fridge) - freeing up Paul and myself to actually speak to people... and for me to take a few photos! We were most grateful. 

Mietta had the best time and was a wonderful host. Her enthusiasm lasted ALL day. Upon returning home she immediately constructed one of the left-over goody bag crafts, then built Mega bloks with Paul all afternoon, before taking Rascal for a walk and having her first-ever attempt on a pedal bike. Phew!

Extermi-cake!

Poor Luc always seems to have a delayed birthday party. It always seems to snow, or some bad weather makes entertaining at home seem like a really bad idea. This year was no exception... his February birthday party was held in April - after one postponement. 
Luc has several current obsessions - namely Minecraft, Doctor Who, Diary of a Wimpy Kid... but he decided to theme his birthday party an 'Everything' party (I'm not sure if he wanted to restrict himself to a particular theme).
Luc helped make his birthday cake and was going to help decorate it... but it got too late and he had to get to bed. As seems to be the case when I am doing things at the last moment, I changed my mind. Instead of making and icing 'cubes' of cake a la Minecraft style, I decided to change the theme to another of Luc's obsessions - Doctor Who! I had envisaged a TARDIS cake, but our 'round' carrot cake didn't really suit... how about a Dalek? I knew this would be a hit. I made a quick Banana Cake for the rest of the body. 
For those who don't know, Daleks have been scaring kids for generations. These are alien beings, indestructible, without a skerrick of emotion. They are fond of chasing around humans chanting "Exterminate. Exterminate! Exterminate" - before doing just that. I did a quick image search to look for the vital Dalek features. It turns out that there have been MANY Dalek cakes made over the years - very elaborate, very realistic and very time consuming! 

Of course I roud my decision when I found we were out of black gel color, and that with a bit of extra planning, I could have prepared some really great Dalek accoutrements, organized some silver spray color, bought some fondant instead of having to search for a recipe and then make some... 

Anyway, once I started, there was no turning back. 

You will understand how happy I felt when I found a beaming Luc in the morning - happy, surprised and totally appreciative. 
We served a simple lunch: Grilled burgers and sweet corn, chicken drumettes, tossed salad, asparagus... a perfect spring party :-)

Our hungry little caterpillar turns 4!

I LOVE Summer birthday parties. These are so much easier to deal with than Winter parties that so often have to occur indoors in our climate. 

Mietta celebrated her birthday with a Hungry Caterpillar birthday party. Just 24 hours prior, it was going to be a tea party... but then a change of plans as I didn't think the little boys would cope so well... and besides, we had a hard time finding old teacups and saucers at the local thrift shops. I had always secretly wanted to do a Hungry Caterpillar Party - and I figured this would be my last chance! 

Our cupcakes easily transitioned into a caterpillar cake. Eric Carle made planning the rest of a Caterpillar party menu foolproof - as the whole menu is listed in his book and is very straightforward: apples, oranges, plums, pears, strawberries, watermelon, pizza, salami, cherry pie... easy! 

Once Mietta saw her cake, she was sold on the idea - PHEW!

I made some pizza dough and made pesto and tomato and pepperoni pizzas, bought some salami, swiss cheese, cornichons (for pickles) and a readymade cherry pie. 

 A quick trip to our local International Market helped to fill our Goodie Bags with exotic treats: puffed rice, mango jelly, rice crackers, milk caramels, ginger chews... and of course, Lollypops (from the book). 

Let me pull a rabbit out of this hat!

We promised Luc a birthday party when his grandparents arrived. The poor boy's birthday coincided with SO much snow, that we didn't get around to organising anything in February. Running out of time, before Mum and Dad left, we had a very small and intimate party with good friends and family. I was about to make Luc's 'magic' cake with a wand and stars (as requested). As Luc was walking out the door, I told him I would make the base of his cake a carrot cake. His face fell and he looked SO disappointed, saying he would actually, prefer a lemon cake. A moment of panic. A change of plans. Perhaps, If I made a lemon sponge cake, I could make a rabbit popping out?!? I quickly whipped up some sponge cakes (actually a whole lot easier than a carrot cake). I figured I could make the hat taller if I layered the sponge layers with fresh strawberries and cream. I set to working out how to make a rabbit. I threaded some tiny marshmallows onto wooden skewers. These ended up looking way too long for ears. I wished I had a foam ball to make the rabbits head - thinking I could frost this. Instead, a brainwave: blow-out the eggs we had left over from easter decorating- these were after all, a very bright white, and would match the color of the marshmallows. Trial and error led me to covering the eggshells with halved marshmallows stuck on with an icing sugar 'glue'. The first ear attempts became arms and I made less lengthy versions for ears. I added a face using glacé cherries, raisins and silver cachous. Luc came home and was super happy with what I had achieved. He told me he wanted the hat iced in black frosting with the top (bottom) of the hat to have a purple band.

Paul and I went out to dinner and a large part of our evening was spent discussing how we would ice the cake. I thought black icing or frosting would be a little off-putting due to the color to icing ratio: a bit overwhelming for a simple sponge. Paul suggested that we convince Luc to go for a 'brown' cake - therefore enabling us to use chocolate. We both knew he would be willing. On the way home from dinner, we ended up in the baking aisle of the supermarket, reviewing our options. We thought chocolate drops / morsels glued on with cream, grated chocolate, ready-made chocolate frosting, chocolate cream... We read the ingredients on the ready-made frosting packets, and immediately put these back: artificial everything, trans fats - We couldn't possibly feed this to our guests!

The morning of the party, I had a brain wave: use a chocolate 'collar' around the cake. I had done this before and it is relatively simple with dramatic results. I measured the height and circumference of the cake, cut a strip of baking paper just a little larger, painted this with melted chocolate drops and then wrapped this around the cake, chilling it to harden. Once firm enough, the baking paper is carefully peeled away. I cut a ring from cardboard, wrapped this in glad wrap and then painted this too with chocolate, affixing it to the top of the cake with more melted chocolate. Having melted far too much chocolate, I dipped some strawberries - these later became decoration.

We served a very simple and easily prepared lunch using lots of fresh 'summer' foods: fresh berries, homemade lemonade, steamed asparagus, baby spinach salad, baked baby red potatoes, hard-boiled farm-fresh free-range eggs (including some lovely 'green' eggs), rotisserie chicken... all followed by the 'magic hat' birthday cake.

The kids had a post-cake crash and spent some time watching the cartoon version of the Wizard of Oz.

Luc concluded the party with his very own magic show. He really 'wowed' his audience and showed a new-found professionalism: resisting the temptation to reveal his tricks or perform them twice, and limiting his magic tricks to his four or five best.