What food do I need for a 6 year old’s birthday party?

[WhatsTheTimeMrCat]

Specifically, do I need sweet stuff for the birthday tea? I’m out of practice at this thanks to Covid. Party is tomorrow but need to update online order for delivery in the morning.

So far, I’m planning:

• sandwiches (choice of ham and cheese)
• crisps (two types)
• pizza
• sausage rolls or cocktail sausages
• cucumber/carrot sticks
• maybe some strawberries, hulled.

Do I need biscuits/little cakes as well? I was planning to cut and serve the birthday cake at the party, and will also be handing round sweets as prizes.

The last party we had was for 4 year olds and the mini cupcakes were only half eaten with Smarties picked off various ones. The year I put out Party Rings, they went down well. This is the first party where I’ve only catered for kids, though, and I don’t want to end up wasting food!

Jam sandwiches even! Ham is definitely mainstream here.

no sandwiches. just pizza.

dd's year group all had veg sticks etc
ds's year group didn't.

we have had party boxes where the kids were given a pack of crisps, a chocolate bar like kit kat, a jelly and a sandwich at some parties we have attended.

If they can't have Nutella, I have done "weak" buttercream with sprinkles.

Definitely take Nigella's advice from How to Eat - do bigger numbers of fewer things. The kids aren't bothered!

Sounds fine, and good choice, often kids dont eat something, my DS wont eat pizza but would eat the rest except cucumber. Dd would eat veggie stuff and carrots and cucumber. Bowls of grapes are good as well. At ours all veg got eaten.

A hand gel is useful esp with covid.

Egg and cress butties
Ham butties
Crisps
Cocktail sausages
Cucumber sticks
Tomatoes
Party rings
Chocolate fingers
Fairy buns
Cake.

It’s always jam or cheese sandwiches here, so many religions to manage that meat gets complicated and thankfully nobody dairy free. Chocolate fingers and party rings are absolutely compulsory.

I used to do meringue mice which always went down a storm (but they are a bit fiddly) for a sweet thing. My kids still ask for them on their birthdays. If you feel like having a go, it's meringue blobbed out into a mouse shape, silver balls for eyes and then when they're cooked half a red liquorice lace stuck in the bum (using a skewer) for a tail.

I did babybells cut in half with straws poking out to look like brollies one year and from there on they were demanded forever more. Kids loved them and they stretch further.

Party rings always go down well

For sweet I'd go a couple of tray bakes (vanilla/chocolate)

Anyone else thinking of the birthday party episode of motherland and Liz's caterpillar cakes

We had my sons birthday recently and they devoured the fruit (melon and grapes) also chocolate brownie bites disappeared in seconds !

browning lettuce

Aged 5 my DD said menacingly to me: “it is NOT a party unless there are jam sandwiches!”

What you’re planning sounds great - the veg sticks do get eaten here and I find the sandwiches do too and cocktail sausages. (Sausage rolls don’t for some reason, I’ve found!)

Do hula hoops or Pom bears for the crisps - they seem to prefer those to proper crisps.

Add some party rings and chocolate fingers or Cadbury’s animal biscuits and a few bits of fruit and you’re good to go 👍

On another note, I really miss the old Cadbury’s animal biscuits they used to have when I was a kid - in animal shapes with that big layer of ridged proper Cadbury’s chocolate on the back. Crammed into a big box. The current ones are nothing like them 😩

@SillyBub

browning lettuce

Just came here to say that

My DD is 15 now. I did a whole class party form6th and made a loaf of cheese and a loaf of ham sandwiches (lovely soft bread, crusts cut off) all went in the bin so I've never done since!!

Cocktail sausages
Sausage rolls
Nuggets
Crackers
Cheese
Crisps
Cucumber
Carrot
Tomato
Grapes
Lots more crisps
Chic fingers
Biscuits
Cakes......

Do you not need 5 little gem lettuces which are past their use by date at a kids birthday party tonight?

The sandwiches are for the parents at pick up.

I’m doing a party for 9 year olds in a couple weeks and I’ve planned
Ham, cheese, tuna Mayo, egg mayo & prawn mayo sandwiches (ordered from Morrisons)
Cocktail sausages
Mini sausage rolls
Cherry tomatoes & carrot batons
Crisps
Sweet & salty popcorn with M&Ms mixed in (as per birthday girl request)
Party rings and macarons (as per other birthday girl request)
Strawberries & blueberries
Small apple and orange juice cartons
Water
And birthday cake

I'm a bad mother. Go to Iceland and get all the party bite foods, savoury bites in oven. Sweet bites just defrost. Add crisp type foods drinks and your done. The parents do Hoover up the excess 😃

Recently attended a kid’s party with my niece and fruit kebabs studded with marshmallows were a HUGE hit!

Ooh, I’ve just remembered we have popcorn which needs eating…

Still haven’t seen Motherland. We do actually have a browning lettuce - will I get knowing nods if I put it out?

@irresistibleoverwhelm, did they really muck about with the animal biscuits? DC1 has the mini ones in packets but have never managed to sample one. No ridged chocolate - that’s one Proustian moment I’ll never get back.

No ridged chocolate, no! And it doesn’t taste like it did anyway since they mucked about with the Cadbury’s recipe and put palm oil in. (I remember long threads on MN about the change to Cadbury’s…)

I was also gutted to see they replaced the day-glo neon look of the party rings of the past with insipid natural colouring derived from beetroot or whatever. What a disappointment- but at least the still taste the same

Oh for the party food of my youth - Ringos, Skips, all the E-numbers available on the shelves of 80s Kwik-Save, those biscuits with six pink fluffy marshmallows on, virulent lime jelly in mini pots with Angel Delight whipped on the top, iced gems, fairy cakes decorated with jelly diamonds and Angelica. And green cream soda and dandelion and burdock pop.

If you were really lucky, cream soda floats with ice cream. (If you were really really lucky you also didn’t end up chucking them up afterwards )

@irresistibleoverwhelm, if it helps, you can still get the jelly diamonds….

Reporting back: you definitely need party rings. That aside, they barely ate a thing. We’re going to be eating a lot of Wotsits and cocktail sausages this week. I suspect the timing of the party was an issue, plus they had too much fun running around to stop for food.

If we do this again last year (rocking in a corner at the thought), I would definitely halve food quantities.

Big thank you to the poster who suggested cocktail stick fruit kebabs - these looked amazing and half of those were eaten!

Sounds like it went well though! Congrats on getting it successfully over with!! Hope you are now relaxing with wine…

For DD’s first party DP was seized by a fear that there would not be enough food and stayed up until 3am baking cupcakes. I swear we had about 60 of the things. Of course they were too busy playing to eat them! We were literally pressing them into the parents’ hands as they left begging them to take them, and we were still eating leftover stale cakes for about two weeks 😂

@WhatsTheTimeMrCat

Ooh, I’ve just remembered we have popcorn which needs eating…

Still haven’t seen Motherland. We do actually have a browning lettuce - will I get knowing nods if I put it out?

@irresistibleoverwhelm, did they really muck about with the animal biscuits? DC1 has the mini ones in packets but have never managed to sample one. No ridged chocolate - that’s one Proustian moment I’ll never get back.

Browning lettuce is an in-joke from a Mumsnet thread from this week where the husband bought browning lettuces instead of birthday cake ingredients, it’s not a Motherland thing.