Dear mykidstime parents,

I’ve always been an advocate of the old fashioned “Irish” birthday party, where all the children come to the house, play games and go a bit mad for an afternoon.  In recent years the trend has been for parties to take place at indoor play areas or if at home to have an entertainer come to the house.   Although my children have really enjoyed going to these parties I have always opted for the home-made version, no  doubt they’ll be lamenting this in therapy in years to come.

We usually have a treasure hunt, pass the parcel, musical chairs, musical statues, a silly faces game and of course party food.  I’ve pretty much made the same array of party food for that past few years with a few variations, directed by the kids.  There are always rice crispie buns made with Cadburys milk chocolate and decorated with smarties, iced buns and birthday cake.  The type of cake and the style of bun is decided by whomever’s birthday it is, so this weekend lemon buns with lemon butter icing are on the list and jam and cream sponge cake for my older daughter’s birthday party.  Apart from these confections I will also serve either pizza or sausages.  I’m giving you a recipe for home-made sausages but other wise just buy them from a good butchers shop.

Last March my younger daughter had a very clear idea of what she wanted and that was a heart shaped chocolate cake decorated with flowers, butterflies and glitter, a bit of a tall order, but I got on the net and found a great web-site www.cccshop.co.uk They had everything I needed but unfortunately none of it arrived until the week after the party, I improvised and got away with it but in future I’ll order 3 weeks in advance.  The butterflies are amazing and I’ve used them since as are, the sugar icing flowers and edible glitter, if you don’t get around to pre-ordering decorations most of the supermarkets have a reasonable selection or just use jelly tots and sprinkles.  One year I got Supercooks writing icing (available at Tesco’s) and after icing each bun with white icing wrote each childs name on a bun, they got a real kick out of it.  You don’t have to be an artist, in fact the crazier they look the better.

Please let me know through the forum how you get on and pass on any tips you may have which would be of use to us all.

Happy cooking, Judy