Tag Archives: party food

Mar28

Bunny Cake

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IMG_8719Big L made a round buttercake, and I decided we should decorate it as a bunny. It was iced with plain white frosting andIMG_8711 then covered in dessicated coconut.

Bunny ears.

Bunny ears.

The ears were made by gluing some pink foam onto white felt, and then when they were dry, I attached them to the back of the cake using toothpicks, so they were sticking up into the air.

I used both normal sized and mini marshmallows to make the nose and the teeth. The eyes are half a marshmallow with a mini m&m as a pupil. The mouth is made out of writing fudge, but I had lots of trouble getting it into the shape I wanted as it didn’t stick to the coconut very well. By the time I came to make the whiskers I was a bit frustrated with the writing fudge, so I started looking for something else to use. I thought about using liquorice, but we didn’t have anything, so I compromised and used dry spaghetti. I broke the spaghetti into the lengths I wanted and then laid the pieces down as whiskers.

Everyone was very happy with how our bunny cake turned out, and even happier when they were eating it!

 

Mar25

Monster Fingers

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Monster themed finger food just right for a snack or party is monster fingers. A chose to use cheese sticks for this activity, while L chose to use carrot sticks. We used dried strawberries for the finger nails. I was going to use pecan halves or slivered almonds for this, but we’d run out, and the kids couldn’t wait for me to go to the store. I think the dried strawberries worked well though.

Adding dip to the finger to stick the fingernail on.

Adding dip to the finger to stick the fingernail on.

I broke the cheese sticks in half and cut the carrots into sticks. The kids used a little bit of french onion dip to stick the fingernails to the fingers. We could have used cream cheese or something like that to stick them together too.

Adding a fingernail.

Adding a fingernail.

This was pretty quick and easy, fun and tasty. The kids pulled theirs apart to eat them though, as the dried strawberries were quite sweet while the cheese and carrot were not, and they didn’t like the mixed tastes. I think they would have eaten them together if we’d used the nuts instead of strawberries. We can use nuts next time we feel a bit peckish for some monster fingers.

A plateful of monster fingers.

A plateful of monster fingers.

Mar21

Cupcake Monsters

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With some frosting, lollies and fudge writing gel, we turned our plain vanilla cupcakes into monster treats. Big L cooked the cupcakes for us and then we decorated them as a family. It was lots of fun, and we ended up with some awesome cupcakes!

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The kids enjoyed spreading the frosting onto each cupcake, though A kept leaning through the work area, and ended up with three shades of frosting all over her. She even tried licking some of it off her elbow!

Spreading the frosting.

Spreading the frosting.

Adding mini marshmallows.

Adding mini marshmallows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the frosting was completed we used a range of lollies, including some strawberry jellies, mini m&ms, yoghurt buttons and mini marshmallows, and some writing fudge, to create our monsters. L used some frosting to stick mini marshmallows together to create long horns. Big L made a Cookie Monster cupcake, complete with mini cookie in his mouth. A just liked using lots of m&ms and marshmallows (and eating them when she thought we weren’t watching!). I used the writing fudge to add pupils to my monsters’ eyes.

Big L's attempt at making Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

Big L’s attempt at making Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

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Jan25

Frankfurt Octopuses

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This is a fun and interesting way to serve cocktail frankfurts. A friend of mine served these at an undersea themed birthday party last year, and I just had to try them for myself.

Frankfurt octopuses.

Frankfurt octopuses.

Surprisingly easy to make, the kids often ask for their frankfurts to be made into octopuses now. I use a sharp knife to cut into each frankfurt starting from about half-way up, slicing through the bottom half length-ways. Then I turn the frankfurt around and cut it through again, so now the bottom half is in quarters lengthways. Then each quarter is cut in half again to make eight tentacles. I have found it just as easy to cut through the two opposite quarters of the frankfurt at the same time, as it is to tackle each quarter separately.

Cut up ready to cook.

Cut up ready to cook.

Cooking in the pot.

Cooking in the pot.

Once the frankfurts are cooking, either on the stove top, or in the microwave, the tentacles will start to curl up and out, giving the frankfurts an octopus look.

 

 

The kids like to have tomato sauce with their frankfurts. They dip the octopus’ tentacles into the sauce and bite them off. While they were eating, I heard a lot of “I have a four-leg octopus” and “I have a no leg octopus!”. L even exclaimed she had a “no-head octopus” after she bit the top off her frankfurt.

Frankfurt octopuses ready to eat.

Frankfurt octopuses ready to eat.

 

Jan24

Pigs-in-Blankets

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Pigs-in-blankets are a great finger food for kids parties, and they are super easy to make!

Cut up into eights.

Cut up into eights.

A frankfurt waiting to be rolled into its pastry blanket.

A frankfurt waiting to be rolled into its pastry blanket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I buy the puff pastry in frozen sheets because I’m not much of a cook, and I’ve never managed to make my own puff pastry successfully. It is also much easier and quicker to buy frozen puff pastry. I let it defrost for a few minutes before cutting each piece in half across, and then in thirds or quarters lengthways, making six or eight rectangles of pastry out of each square pastry sheet. When the pastry sheets are cut into eighths, each frankfurt has a little less pastry on it, so there is a little bit of red poking out the ends of the pastry blanket.

Ready for the oven.

Ready for the oven.

L helping me to roll the pigs.

L helping me to roll the pigs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onto each piece of pastry, I  placed one cocktail frankfurt and rolled them up, just like in a blanket. I pinched the edge of the pastry down, and then popped them on a tray in the oven to cook until they were puffy and golden.

Cooling down before eating.

Cooling down before eating.

Ready to eat!

Ready to eat!

 

 

These go down very well with the kids!

Jan22

Fruit Kebabs

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With all the lovely summer fruits out at the moment, we have been eating a lot of fruit salad. The kids would probably live on fruit if they could. Instead of just cutting up the fruit and mixing it together before adding it to bowls for everyone, today we decided to make some fruit kebabs.

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It was pretty simple. I washed the fruit and cut it into chunks and put them on a tray. We had watermelon, pineapple, two types of grapes and strawberries. I left the grapes whole. Any fruit firm enough to be threaded onto skewers would have worked, but these are the fruits we are enjoying at the moment.

Threading a strawberry carefully onto her skewer.

Threading a strawberry carefully onto her skewer.

Adding a grape.

Adding a grape.

 

 

 

 

 

I discovered I only had jumbo skewers, rather than the standard sized ones in the drawer, so our kebabs were a bit bigger than normal. The kids also made some mini-kebabs with toothpicks, which really only fitted a couple of pieces of fruit. Soaking the skewers in water for half an hour or so can reduce the incidence of little splinters from the skewers coming off on the fruit, but I didn’t do that today as the kids were too impatient to wait. Luckily for us, no splinters!

I let the kids make their own kebabs by threading on whatever pieces of fruit they wanted. A found this quite easy, but L often threaded her pieces of fruit too close to the edge, and some of them broke and fell off. They made a couple of kebabs each, and then there was all the fun of eating them!

Finished fruit kebabs.

Finished fruit kebabs.

Some mini-kebabs.

Some mini-kebabs.

Nov1

Spider Drinks

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We made another type of spider on Halloween too, this time an edible variety. When I told L there would be spiders for desert she became a bit worried, and told me she didn’t want any red-backs because they are poisonous. That gave me a bit of a chuckle.

Ingredients.

Ingredients.

The kids had never had soft drink spiders before, so they were fascinated when Big L put ice-cream and lime soft drink on the bench. Big L placed a scoop of ice-ceam in the bottom of some plastic cups, and then slowly added the lime soft drink. The kids loved watching the combination fizz up. Both kids were keen to try them, L really enjoyed it, while A thought it was icky. Not a big surprise though, since she doesn’t like soft drinks either, but we were happy she tried a new food.

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We used straws to drink the spiders, and we all had fun trying to create enough suction on the lump of ice-cream with the straw to lift it out of the soft drink. Lots of laughs when Big L dropped his ball of ice-cream and it splashed back into the drink spraying his face with green speckles.