Everything you need to host a garden party for kids
I’m excited by tea parties, but especially garden tea parties. Along with the delicious cakes and decorative teaspoons there are flowers and you get to wear an awesome dress and put flowers in your hair and drink tea … well, not real tea, but pretend tea – and it’s all so grown-up and so cool!
DECORATIONS
You can go to town with the decorations for this party … the more the better! Tissue paper pompoms, pretty tablecloths, all manner of garlands and heaps of fresh flowers make for easy decorations.
Teapot vases
• teapots
• fresh flowers
It’s not a tea party without teapots. Dress some up with bunches of fresh seasonal flowers.
Table settings
• forks and spoons
• coloured napkins
• paper doilies
• twine
Time to break out Great Aunt Ethel’s decorative teaspoons. Wrap forks and spoons in a napkin and a lacy paper doily, then tie off with twine. A pretty fan makes a nice addition if the weather is warm.
ACTIVITIES
Colourful flower craft
• card in a variety of colours
• glue sticks
Prepare ahead of time by cutting card into various flower petal and stem shapes (use the image opposite as a guide or come up with your own designs). Make up a few flowers to give the children inspiration.
Set up a craft table and let your little guests create their personal flower bouquets.
Floral fascinator
• brown paper
• selection of flowers, leaves and feathers
• tape in a dispenser
These flowery headbands are fun to make and are a pretty party souvenir to take home.
Trace around an upturned drinking glass onto brown paper and cut out. Cut two 30 x 4 cm (12 x 11/2 in) lengths of paper and tape them to either side of the circle. Have the plain headbands, a selection of flowers and a tape dispenser ready to go at the party.
The children only have to choose the flowers to stick on. You’ll need to help the children fasten the finished headbands in place by overlapping and adjusting the two strips of paper to fi t the child’s head and then stapling in place. It should slip on and off easily.
Stack the teacups
• child’s plastic tea set Children’s tea sets are almost indestructible, but in any case, this game is best played on soft grass or sitting upon some pretty cushions.
Each child has a turn at seeing how many cups they can stack before the pile topples.
Pass the teapot
• pretty teapot
• sweets and chocolates
This is basically pass the parcel with a teapot.
Fill a teapot with sweets and chocolates. Let the children sit down in a circle and turn on some music. The children now pass the teapot around while the music is playing. Every time the music stops the child who is holding the teapot gets to choose a sweet from the pot and is out. The last child left in gets the rest of the sweets … best not to put too many in there.
FOOD
Finger sandwiches
• thin-sliced bread
• cream cheese
• cucumber, thinly sliced
• violets or other edible flowers
Method:
You’ll want the tea party classic – cucumber sandwiches – but be sure to include a few other varieties. Dress them up with some pretty edible flowers such as violets.
Berry delicious scones
Makes: 18–22
• 450 g self-raising flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 100 g unsalted butter
• 250 ml milk, and a little extra for brushing the tops of the scones to serve
• 200 ml cream, for whipping
• berry jam
Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 210°C and line a tray with baking paper.
2. Lightly mix flour, baking powder and butter in a food processor until it is crumbly. Pour the mixture into a large mixing bowl and stir in the milk until just combined. Sprinkle some flour on your bench, turn out the dough and then lightly knead it until it just comes together. Roll the dough with a rolling pin until it is around 21/2 cm thick, then use a circle-shaped cookie cutter to press out the scones.
3. Place them close together in the centre of the baking tray and lightly brush with the extra milk. Bake for around 12 minutes, or until lightly golden on top.
4. You can make the scones ahead of time and simply top them with jam and whipped cream when you’re ready to serve. To make the whipped cream, using an electric mixer on high speed, whisk the cream until soft peaks form.
Marshmallow teacups
• marshmallows
• writing icing
• Arnott’s Tic Toc biscuits (or any plain, round thin cookie)
• chocolate freckles (chocolate nonpareils)
• musk-flavoured Lifesavers, broken in half (mint Polos work, too)
Method:
Use writing icing to glue a marshmallow to a biscuit, then glue a freckle on top of the marshmallow. Finally, glue half a Lifesaver in place for the cup handle. Hold until it adheres.
Basic cookie recipe
Makes: Approximately 20
• 90 g unsalted butter (cold), diced
• 250 g plain flour
• 85 g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt
Method:
- Mix cold butter and flour in a food processor until it is crumbly – don’t overmix.
- Put the butter mixture into a large mixing bowl, then add the icing sugar, egg, vanilla and salt. Mix with a spatula until smooth. Flatten the cookie mixture into a large oval and wrap with plastic wrap. Pop in the refrigerator to cool for 30 minutes.
- When ready, shape your cookies how you want them, then lay them out on a baking tray lined with baking paper (parchment) and put in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- When the dough is chilled, bake for 18–20 minutes, until slightly golden.
Teabag biscuits
Follow the recipe for basic cookie dough above.
• 150 g (5 1/2 oz) dark chocolate
• decorative coloured paper or card
• embroidery thread
Makes: 30
Method:
1. Make the dough and when it is chilled, roll it out between two sheets of baking paper (parchment) until it is about 5 mm (1/4 in) thick.
2. Cut out teabag-sized rectangles. Carefully cut off the top corners of your teabag biscuits.
Use a straw to punch a hole in the top of the teabag (you’ll use the hole later to thread the label on). Carefully lay out the biscuits on the baking tray and put back in the refrigerator for another 30 minutes to chill before baking as per the basic cookie recipe above.
3. When the biscuits are cool, melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Dip each biscuit into the melted chocolate about a third of the way up. Allow to dry on baking paper.
4. When the biscuits are ready, cut some little labels for the teabags from the decorative paper.
Attach the labels through the hole in the biscuit with embroidery thread.
Pink lemonade with floral ice cubes
• variety of small edible flowers, such as borage or violets
• pink lemonade (pink sparkling soda)
Method:
To make the floral ice cubes, quarter fill an ice tray with water and freeze. When frozen, pop in little edible flowers face down and pour just enough water to almost cover the flowers.
Freeze again. When frozen again, fill the ice tray up to the top. Add the floral ice cubes to pink lemonade for an extra special treat.
CAKE
Mini red velvet cakes
Make the two red velvet cakes below.
orange cream cheese icing
• 500 g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 120 g butter, unsalted, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 300 g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1 teaspoon milk (if needed) garnish
• fruit or fresh flowers
Makes: 8
Method:
1.Once the cakes have cooled, use a long serrated knife to cut each cake in half horizontally.
Use a circle-shaped cookie cutter to press out six rounds from each layer.
2. Beat the cream cheese and butter until just smooth. Stir through the vanilla, then add the sifted icing sugar a half cup at a time until combined. Stir through the zest. Taste test time.
3. If the icing is a little too thick add a teaspoon of milk.
Pipe onto the mini cake layers and stack up the cakes. Garnish with fruit or fresh flowers.
Red velvet cake
Serves 16
This quantity makes two cakes.
• 345 g cake flour (look for this on your supermarket shelf)
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 2 tablespoons Dutch cocoa (unsweetened) powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 115 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 400 g white sugar
• 250 ml vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• red gel paste food colour
• 250 ml buttermilk, at room temperature
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease two 20 cm x 5 cm deep round cake tins and line with baking paper, making a 3 cm collar above the tin.
2. In a large bowl, sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and salt.
3. In another bowl beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar and beat. Slowly pour in the oil while beating and continue to beat for around 2 minutes. Now beat in the egg yolks and vanilla, then the vinegar and, finally, the red food paste. Go slowly with the food colour – add and mix until you are happy with the shade.
4. Time to beat in the dry ingredients. Slowly beat in a third of the dry, then half the buttermilk, the next third dry, the remaining buttermilk, the remaining dry. Beat until just combined (don’t overmix).
5.Beat the egg whites until they have soft peaks. Dollop a big spoonful of egg white onto the batter and mix in – this will lighten the overall mixture. Gently fold in the remaining whites until just combined.
6. Pour the batter evenly into the two cake tins. Now – don’t skip this step: to keep the sides from browning whilst cooking, wrap a wet tea towel (dish towel) around the sides of the baking tin and then cover that with foil.
7. Bake for 40–45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Allow the cakes to cool completely on wire racks before turning out.
PARTY FAVOURS
Pretty fabric favour bags
• 2 x pieces of fabric 20 cm x 15 cm (8 in x 6 in)
• ribbon (for the closure)
• sewing machine
These bags are easily made with pretty fabric scraps. I’ve used two fabrics and covered the seam with rik rak, but you can just use one fabric for the whole bag. Sew the fabric pieces together, right sides facing. Leave open at the top and leave 3 cm (11/4 in) from the top open on one of the sides. Fold the top down by 3 cm (11/4 in) and press with an iron. Sew along the pressed-down seam, then turn the bag inside-out. Thread the ribbon through the seam.
Felt teabags
• teabag
• white felt
• white cotton
• black embroidery thread
• felt in various colours for the labels
• white embroidery thread
Using the real teabag as your guide, cut out a teabag-sized rectangle from the white felt.
Use running stitch to sew all the way around the edge of the teabag, folding down the corners (just like on your teabag) when you get to them. Use the black thread to sew on the name of the tea (mint, lemon, or simply ‘tea’) using cross stitch (there are excellent tutorials on embroidery stitches online if you need to brush up on your needlework knowledge). Add a felt picture if you like. Alternatively, just give the teabags a happy face. Add a long piece of white embroidery thread at the top of the teabag and attach the label. You can make the label from felt or use paper.
You could also use two pieces of felt sewn together for these bags. Stuff with some dried lavender for extra sweetness.
Strawberry friend
• green, red and white felt
• saucer
• red, white and black embroidery thread
• small black beads
• fabric stuffing
Create green felt strawberry tops by cutting out multi-pronged star shapes. Put aside. Trace around a saucer on the red felt and cut out (do the same on white if you’d like to create white berries too). Cut the circle in half: each half will become a strawberry friend. Fold the semicircle in half and sew the straight sides together with the red thread. Turn inside-out. Use the white embroidery thread to sew on some ‘seeds’ using French knot stitch. Add two little black bead eyes and a black embroidery mouth. Use running stitch to sew around the curved opening, then stuff before pulling the thread tight so that it gathers and closes up. Finally, sew or hot glue the strawberry tops on.
This is an edited extract from Let’s Party by Martine Lleonart published by Hardie Grant Books $32.99 and is available in stores nationally.Photographer: © Lauren Bamford