Hey Bernice!

We made it…. our (not so little) Heidi is now one! The photo below was taken before all her buddies arrived for her party last weekend. Whilst I love this photo, I prefer the ‘behind the scenes’ shots that show you her true personality…

 

Wow this is fun sitting on an adults chair…

I can perform all sorts of maneuvers on here…

I’m loving this Mum…

OK, I’ve had enough now, can I hop down please?….

You SO should have listened when I first indicated I had HAD E-N-O-U-G-H!

Enough about the birthday girl, let me take you on a tour of the party food and decorations – Fun, fun, fun…

The Decorations

Whilst not the official theme, butterflies featured a lot in the decorations. As a centerpiece on the table I had a glass pot full of dead branches I had collected from the beach. I covered them in butterflies I had punched from wrapping paper and a miniature bunting to match the cake bunting (you can read more about that down below).

To make the butterflies…

Using a butterfly puncher, you simply slide the paper in and press down like a hole-puncher…too easy!

I then sewed two butterflies together (so there was a pattern on both sides), leaving a string to hang them…

After making all the butterflies I was left with the butterfly-punched-paper… what can I do with that? (mind ticking over…)

I decided to stick them to the paper boxes I was serving the salads in…

The Food

As a starter I served up my homemade sausage rolls…

Then I served a series of finger food from the BBQ (being so busy cooking and serving I didn’t manage to take photos of all the BBQ food – I’m very annoyed, and terribly sorry about that)…

– Thai pork balls with ginger chilli sauce
These are my Thai chicken burger recipe, except I used pork mince, then rolled into balls and coated in sesame seeds. I half baked them in the oven at 180C, then finished them on the BBQ to give them the colour, and BBQ flavour.

– Moroccan chicken ribs with cucumber & yoghurt sauce
No special recipes here, the ribs were sprinkled in Masterfoods Moroccan seasoning, then cooked on the BBQ – yep, that easy!

– Chipollatas with tomato chutney
These chipolattas are something special, we need to order them from a deli in Geelong, who buy them from the famous butcher Jonathan’s – in Collingwood, Melbourne

I served two salads with the BBQ food, a potato salad (I make-up this recipe, so will follow with a post about this down the track – I need to record the measurements of everything first!), and an Asian Coleslaw (you can use Changs recipe or my recipe for Asian coleslaw) without any meat added. I actually did a hybrid of both recipes on the day (that’s Bernice, always changing the recipe!)

A party is not complete without honey joys… I used this recipe for those…

I also thought I better be responsible, and serve something healthy for the kids to snack on…

Now for the cupcakes…

I had seen a red velvet cupcake recipe attempted on master chef last year, and filed it away as something I would like to try to make one-day. That day arrived, and I whipped them up for Heidi’s party. I used this recipe. I’m not a big cupcake baker (muffins – yes, but very few cupcakes have been turned-out in Bernice’s kitchen). It was a very smart idea of mine to do a trial-run. This is what I discovered in the trial…

– Don’t over-fill the patties, 2/3 full only or they will overflow like volcanoes
– Yes they are ‘red’ velvet cupcakes, but I opted to put only 1 teaspoon of food colouring (of the 1-2 recommended), and they came out looking like chocolate cupcakes (the cocoa obviously won the battle of colour supremacy on that occasion)

So when I did the official baking I put less in the patties, reduced the cocoa slightly, and added more red food colouring…

They are iced with cream cheese icing, my favourite icing of all time (is it sad that I actually have a priority ranking for icings?). I used Pinterest (visit my parties pinterest board) for an injection of inspiration when it came to decorating the cupcakes – resulting in the ribbon, the coloured patties and the little heart on the top. PS. Have a good look at the cupcake stand, I made that too – I will post about that down the track too!

And the cake…

In addition to the cupcakes I made a gluten and dairy free cake (to cater for dietary requirements), this ended up being her birthday cake. I used my trusty flourless chocolate and orange cake recipe, and stacked two cakes on top of each other. I iced the cake with butter icing (using dairy free butter), and then I topped it with Persian Fairy Floss.

The gorgeous cake bunting was made by my very dear friend, and fellow crafter Twirling Betty, it finished the cake off perfectly – making it fit for a princess…

Stay tuned for my future posts about the potato salad recipe (it has a very surprising main ingredient – It will surprise you!) and how I made the cupcake stand from upcycling things from the op shop!

Cheers,
Bernice