Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Happy 2nd Birthday Chloe!

Chloe’s 2nd birthday is this Friday & to celebrate we gave her a nice little party on Valentines Day to celebrate.

Without about 30 or so guests plus little people to cater for I went the bbq option as I thought it would be the easiest & give me the most time to enjoy everything too. Some of my homemade smoked trout dip (which is now my favourite), hummus, Mexican dip, olives & stuffed bell peppers kept everyone happy nibbling until the ‘meat’ course. I kept it very simple too with a range of sausages & home made hamburgers, some corn cobs on the grill & a few salads on the side. This way I could concentrate on knocking up some fabulous desserts in the morning.

The main attraction was Nigella’s Chocolate Raspberry heart cake which is from Feast, the Valentines Day chapter no less. Mind you, the cake was chosen for the chocolate (Chloe's favourite food of all ) & wow factors rather than the coincidence that the party was also on Valentines day. It looked great & lots of little hands were trying to get their hands on it but we managed to save it for Chloe & the candles to get to first, as you can see from the photo she was quite happy & I was happy it turned out so well too.

I also made a batch of fairy cakes which went down well with the kids who don’t seem to need anything fancy & for the adults I made this fabulous lemon & blueberry trifle, definitely my favourite for the day. I think trifle is hugely underrated & people have notions in their head of trifles of the old days with custard & jelly & not necessarily any good. With some quality ingredients, not only does trifle taste wonderful, have endless possibilities for flavour variations, but its also damn easy to make, this one is staying on my ‘for keeps’ recipe folder to be made again for sure

For now Chloe is happy spending her birthday week playing on her 8 in one double slide/playset we hired for a week for the party & waiting for more presents & chocolate cake on her ‘real birthday’ this Friday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL GIRL

4 comments:

Kiki said...

Yum!! To all of it.

I've bookmarked the trifle too, I love the lemon curd portion. Chloe has that great big smile ready for a party.

I've got Miss D's 2nd birthday in under three weeks and I'm unsure of what to do on the day as she is sharing a party with her sister three weeks later. Poor little thing. As soon as she's old enough to realise I'll give her her very own birthday party. With fireworks if she wants.

How are you feeling? I've been wondering about you and your pregnancy.

Ange said...

Hi, I'm feeling great now apart from being my usual frustrated pregnant self not wanting to slow down but my body forcing me too! Lots happening with the house & hope to be back home in a few weeks with a new kitchen to play with, yeah! I'm sure a combined party will be fun for all, at that age they still dont really understand do they? Cant wait to see what you dream up for the big day

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday young lady!

Fast Lane said...

Im looking for something sweet to make tonight because I've been working on restaurant menu design for this new pastry place in Chicago. Now all I want to do is pig out on sweets. From looking at them all day. I think i'll be making something like this tonight. my mother just gave me a recipe for a orange and chocolate cake. it sounds good already!