A combined Birthday Party

February is a big birthday month in our house. There are always a few parties to organise. This time I had to plan a combined birthday party for Tony, his brother and his sister. As we usually have a bigger group I like to keep it pretty simple and serve things I can prepare well ahead of time. I don’t like being tied to the kitchen and missing out on chatting to everyone. It’s also a way to make sure that it’s not a stressful day.

A COMBINED BIRTHDAY PARTY TABLESCAPE

For the table this time I wanted to do something a little masculine but also beautiful. I decided to use my dark green linen tablecloth – the one that now lives on my bed 😂. Don’t worry I did wash it first!!! Combining that with raffia placemats and white crockery. This time I used paper napkins because I wanted to add some pattern to the table.

For the centre of the table I used a green garland along with two different timber bead garlands. These items kept with the natural look I was going for and were things I already owned. I then added some glass/crystal vases and some bright pink flowers just to add a pop of colour. The flowers also tied in to the napkins which had splashes of pink. The leaf cutouts I placed on top of the placemats came from Big W.

When doing a table setting remember you don’t have to buy a lot of new things. The only things I purchased this time were the napkins. Shop your home first. As I previously said the tablecloth is from my the end of my master bed. The garlands were used for Christmas. The whole idea of setting a table for me is letting my guests know they are important to me and I have made an effort to make things beautiful (not perfect!!!) for their visit.

FOOD FOR A COMBINED BIRTHDAY PARTY

Simplicity was the key for this party so I chose to do a burger board. Although, because we had a few people, it ended up being boards 🤣🤣. I chose the following items for the boards, but you can choose whatever items you would enjoy with a burger:-

• Beef burgers
• Chicken Schnitzel
• Bacon
• Two varieties of burger rolls
• Lettuce
• Tomato
• Two varieties of cheese – Colby and American Cheddar
• Beetroot
• Pineapple
• Caramelised Onion
• Avocado
• Potato chips to fill the gaps
• Chips cooked in the air fryer as another side dish
• Tomato and BBQ sauce

I love doing food boards for parties. They’re easy to prepare ahead of time, and I usually do something pretty basic so that everyone can find something they like. I did a baked potato board as well as starter and dessert boards for my daughter’s birthday party. If you’re interested you can find that post here.

I few tips to make things easy when organising your boards.

• Line the bottom of your trays with baking paper for easy clean up;
• Organise your boards and any additional bowls, trays, serving spoons etc the night before so you know exactly where you’re going to put everything. This saves the stress of hunting for things while your guests are there.
• Make your burger patties the day before and have all other proteins ready to be cooked.
• Chop all your salad items and have them in the fridge ready to go. Bear in mind that unless you have a huge board you will probably have to top up your smaller bowls during the meal. Especially if you have a larger crowd.
• If you’re serving caramelised onion do that the day before as well.
• Butter your bread rolls before everyone arrives (leave some unbuttered in case someone doesn’t want butter).

Sorry the photos of the boards are not the greatest but I had 11 hungry people standing all around me while I was taking them. Too much pressure 😂😂

the birthday cake

I had to make a cake for three. Tony, his sister and brother. The boys don’t care what the cake looks like so I obviously went with pretty 🤣🤣. Tony’s mum can’t eat chocolate and the boys like plain cakes best. With these limitations I decided to do a small plain vanilla cake with buttercream rosettes. I also decided to do some vanilla and meringue cupcakes so that we had enough cake to go around. It’s also nice for display purposes to have some variety.

Making a plain cake like this also means I can cook the cake part ahead of time and then ice it the day before. I love it if I can do that as it takes the pressure off. To make things easier I tend to use a packet mix for celebration cakes. I do love to bake from scratch but I find the packet mixes to be more stable and easier to shape and stack. In this case I also knew my guests would prefer the packet cake too.

I made four 20cm round cakes in varying shades of pink. Then stacked them from darkest to lightest.

I covered the cake in a crumb coat and then piped buttercream rosettes again in varying shades of pink.

I dragged the new Cricut Maker out again and made a beautiful cake topper and little flags for the cupcakes. Love this machine ❤️

For the cupcakes I again made vanilla cake, filled the cases to half way. I then made meringue and piped a rosette on the top of each cupcake, sprinkled with demerara sugar and sliced almonds.

THE FINISHED CAKES

Now I’m going to be honest here and say that I struggled with my piping doing this cake. I changed buttercream recipes and the new one was a bit harder to pipe (I think I should have added some more liquid). It was also a crusting buttercream and I had not worked with one of those before. But in the end it all came up nice enough!! When you’re doing cakes its important not to panic and over react until you’ve actually finished. It’s surprising how once you get your pretty things on and put your cake on a stand or beautiful plate, it makes the “mistakes” a lot less noticeable!! Remember your guests know you’re not a professional cake maker so they will not be expecting perfection anyway.

You will notice in the above photos that the top row of buttercream rosettes sticks out a bit further on one side. I’m not sure why other than the fact that the buttercream had gotten a bit thick by then. Anyway once it was all together I think it actually looks ok. Nobody else noticed (or they didn’t say anyway!!!🤣) and it tasted great.

I hope you found some useful information you can us for your next family or friends get together. You can see another one of my celebration cakes here.