Finger food/buffet help please HELP : )

Bettyboop · 20 August 2007 at 7:25PM

Hi all, we are having a birthday party for our little girls 4th birthday on Saturday. It's a princess theme this year and it's being held at home with all the kids dressing up for the party. I have 13 children and 14 adults coming. I did food last year which cost me an absolute fortune. I would like some variety and have choices that everyone can eat. Given the numbers above what inexpensive ideas do you have.

I have thought of:

Sandwiches: Cheese and toms, ham and cheese, smooth apricot jam, tuna and mayonnaise, ham, philladelphia cheese and pineapple
Fruit: Strawberries and clementines (I wanted to have bananas and apples but chopped up they would turn brown)
Cocktail sticks: cheese and pineapple, gherkins and cheese?, pickled onions and cheese? (I'm starting think I have to much cheese
Cream crackers with philladelphia and chilli sauce
Bags of Crisps
Potato salad
Cucumber Slices and carrot sticks
Juice and Coke, Fanta and Lemonade

Please help the above seems so boring to me. I can't take anytime off from so I am planning on decorating the cake (will bake Thursday night) and want to make the food on Friday night.

Thanks all!

Bogof_Babe · 20 August 2007 at 7:40PM

You'll want something a bit stronger for the adults won't you? I am sure they won't all be driving. A Sainsbury Hock box (3L) is around £8, or they do a 1.5L bottle for under £4.

Your food sounds great, but how about some sweet stuff? Could you make some individual fruit trifles, or just jelly and ice cream?

A good and cheap buffet tray filler is a box of Ritz crackers with a swirl of Primula squirty cheese on top. For colour, you could put half a cherry tomato on some of them, and half a grape on the others.

Bettyboop · 20 August 2007 at 7:53PM

Thanks Bogog-Babe, I forgot to mention icecream. I am also putting sweeties into icecream cones and then sealing them closed with a digestive and icing. The outside is going to have smarties, jelly tots and dolly mixture on it. I also have birthday cake and want make koeksisters (sweet South African treat).

doraexplorer · 20 August 2007 at 7:56PM

i love doing party food and always help my friends. some of my ideas are

the food you are doing sounds lovely

big marshmallows (the pink and white ones)dipped in choc with a smartie on top
cornflake cakes made like rice krispie cakes and put mini eggs in the middle to make bird nests
i also make my sandwiches with brown and white bread and make them into a chess board.
wrap a tattie in tinfoil to put your cocktail sticks in looks like a hedgehog

the kids are more interested in playing than food and as long as they get a bit of birthday cake thier happy . its us big ones that like the party food .

Bettyboop · 20 August 2007 at 8:00PM

doraexplorer....thank you for your lovely ideas....the cocktail sticks stuck in a foil potatoe is so good....I will definitely be doing that and dipping pink and white marshmallows in chocolate sauce....with a smartie ontop. For this would I need to use cooking chocolate? which one is best? THANKS : )

sandy2_2 · 20 August 2007 at 8:07PM

What about using different sorts of bread for the sandwiches, one slice of brown with one of white, even 3 slices of bead to make taller but smaller 'club' sandwiches, cut different flavours into different shapes ie fingers, triangles, squares you could even do pinwheels ie one or 2 slices of bread rolled and then cut thro into 'catherine wheels'
How about some small sausage rolls, cheese straws (oops cheese again)
Orange jelly topped with caramel instant whip, marshmallows made into frogs so they can get a 'Prince' one day (if you have nasturtiums in the garen you could bring some leaves in and sit the frogs on them all on top of a green jelly. If they wanted something from the wicked witch, how about a jelly with worms (sweet ones of course!)
mini fairy cakes in SMALL cupcake cases with a dab of icing
What about giving your princesses a special drink of 'champagne' ie grape juice (not too much as it's quite sweet) or a dash of applejuice watered down with some lemonade

Bettyboop · 20 August 2007 at 8:25PM

sandy2, how do I make frogs out of the marshmallows : ) I'm not very imaginative which I'm sure you can tell.

THIRZAH · 20 August 2007 at 8:50PM

What about some kind of dip-you can buy it if don't have time to make it-with taco chips and the carrot sticks.

Also a platter with two kinds of melon-watermelon and galia perhaps-they won't go brown.

sooz · 20 August 2007 at 9:06PM

I was at a princess party the other week (gosh...my social life is so exciting

), and amongst the many other amazing things we were given (cakes shaped into mice anyone?) they served hundreds and thousands on slices of white bread. Don't know what it was stuck on with - butter or margerine probably - it went down a treat with the little madams

and looked very interesting.

sooz · 20 August 2007 at 9:07PM

THIRZAH wrote: »

What about some kind of dip-you can buy it if don't have time to make it-with taco chips and the carrot sticks.

Also a platter with two kinds of melon-watermelon and galia perhaps-they won't go brown.

mmmm - home made houmous and carrot sticks, and pepper sticks and crisps.

wishiwasarichgirl · 20 August 2007 at 9:20PM

Bettyboop wrote: »

doraexplorer....thank you for your lovely ideas....the cocktail sticks stuck in a foil potatoe is so good....I will definitely be doing that and dipping pink and white marshmallows in chocolate sauce....with a smartie ontop. For this would I need to use cooking chocolate? which one is best? THANKS : )

ooh, we used to have the marshmallow with smartie on top at all our parties, think mum just used ordinary melted chocolate, we called them top-hats. Also rice crispie buns are quick and easy to do, put some hundreds and thousands on top to make them look pretty. And maybe some 15's, they always go down well.

also always had cocktail sausages, mini sausage rolls, vol au vonts, those pary ring biscuits and hula hoops (cos you can see how many of each you can fit on your fingers - great fun if you're a kid

)

hmm, I seem to have a lot of sweets & junk in my list, but then thats the best kind of party

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Finger food/buffet help please HELP : )

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