To spend £120 on a buffet for 16 people

[rainbowmagicunicorn]

We are hosting a New Years Buffet for 16 people (13 adults, 3 children)

This is my food plan:

Part bake rolls £4
Crackers £5
Cheese - cheddar, Brie, blue, Boursin, Wensleydale and cranberry £10
Chutney& cranberry sauce & apple sauce £4
Grapes, pomegranate, oranges £5
Slow cooker Gammon joint £10
Sausage rolls £3
pigs in blankets £5
pork pies £4

Sharing crisps £3
Cheese twists £1
Dips £2.50

Coleslaw £2.50
Potato salad £2.50
Nigellas festive cous cous £2.50

Puff pastry tarts - pesto and thinly sliced tomato, pizza (tomato purée, mozzarella and Italian herbs), caramelised onion and goats cheese:
3 x rolls puff pastry £4
Pesto £1
Tomatoes £1
Tomato purée £1
Mozzarella £2
Italian herbs £2
Canalised onion chutney £2
Goats cheese £2

Pudding
Slow cooker hot chocolate £6
With toppings - mini marshmallows, squirts cream, sprinkles, candy canes £5

Mince pies £2.50
Yule log (homemade) £5
Profiteroles £3
Fruit salad £10

Drinks
Selection soft drinks £10
Tea and coffee (will have in)

Total £120

£120 seems a lot, but yet the food doesn't seem excessive to me!

AIBU to spend this much? Or is this just the cost of things nowadays?

Make your own coleslaw/ potato salad and spend the remaining 8 quid on more cheese. Or skip it altogether.

I agree that your portion sizes are tiny. It will only work if all your guests are old people or under 5s . Sorry.

I’d expect to spend at least £10 ph. Yours sounds lovely 😃

Too much choice and it needs a sort of loose theme. You could make less variety and more quality. No need for all that cheap pork, for instance. And ditch the hot chocolate. Choose one thing and plan the rest of the table around it. If there are fussy kids then perhaps a separate little table of Iceland party food could be considered? Good luck and hope you have a fab evening.

i think you’d be better off utilising the slow cooker for something like chilli or soup.

I also think you might be under estimating how much people will eat, and how people who are quick to the buffet will take more than their ‘portion’ of certain items. Some eager beavers like to get to the front and pile on sliced gammon or pigs in blankets, where you may have decided each person is allocated one slice of gammon and two pigs in blankets.

You know the mix of guests better than us though, would you say they are generally reserved eaters?

Depends on how many of these things. The cost doesn’t really indicate anything without knowing the quantity. You could shop at Aldi or Lidl to save money.

Agree that it looks like the portions are unlikely to be enough based on the costs, and also agree that I would cancel the small pastry items if you are already doing puff pastry pizzas (maybe do cold meats instead).

In addition to all the wise thoughts above, consider how much time people will be with you (if it's a lunch + afternoon, people will also want to snack or come back for seconds), and also ages/genders - I regularly cater for lots of people, and find that a young teenage-20s man will often EASILY eat twice what a middle-aged woman will, and I admit that I often make mistakes based on my own appetite.

I would definitely add salad/cut up vegetables.

One thing I often do for a crowd is a big chilli con carne (Hairy Bikers recipe) then serve with tortillas, rice, avocado/guac, chopped onion, chopped tomato, chopped coriander, chopped jalapeño, sour cream and hot sauce (could add nachos) then people make their own tortillas with whatever they like. Easy to do and fills people up inexpensively.

i agree with @StreamingCervix about managing the buffet.

i plate up the 'limited' items myself in the kitchen eg the gammon and rolls to make sure everyone gets some and whatever is left, can go out for seconds.

Can I suggest you have a look at the Morrisons' Food to Order selection. Some of their platters such as the large cheese one, grazing platters, cold meats, sandwiches etc are extraordinarily good value and reduce a lot of hassle. From your costings I don't think you're going to have enough of certain items I'm afraid.

It also depends on the timing of the event and whether it is replacing a meal for people. A 9pm nibbles buffet on New Years eve to soak up booze after people have already had dinner is a bit different to a 6pm buffet when people haven’t already eaten.

I’m a dreadful over caterer but am not a confident host and have ‘The Fear’ of people being hungry. DH is measly with portions sometimes (inadvertently, he’s not at all tight but seems to undercater to my eye) and I’m always supplementing with too much additional. Oh the stress.

Personally I’d ditch the fruit salad but apart from that it looks fine to me

The cost indicates the quantity. For example we all know you’re not getting enough cheese for a cheese board for 16 people with ten pounds worth of cheese made up of several kinds. Same as the profiteroles, mince pies etc it’s not even one mince pie or profiterole each.

It doesn't sound like nearly enough food. Is that one mini mince pie each? One hungry man is going to decimate that buffet and there won't nearly be enough.

Even one big piece of cheddar for 16 will be £10.

No it won't But it will cost more for all of the cheese that are listed in the ops menu

Lidl cheese are good value and a big block of mature cheddar is £4

No I think if Asda it’s 12 mince pies, so not even one each.

I did a buffet for 18:
Big platter of sliced cold roast beef, ham and pork
Cheese selection, grapes, celery
Jacket potatoes, potato salad
Coleslaw, pickles, chutneys, mayonnaise.
Vegetarian nut roast (homemade)
2 large bowls crunchy salad
A large trifle
Fresh fruit salad

Soft drinks, fruit punch, mulled wine

Crisps, twiglets, carrot batons and 3 dips

Total cost £124, plenty of food for the numbers.
Bring a bottle plus already had wine and beer.

I think you need more crisps for a buffet. And also one yule log and two packets of mince pies isn’t going to be enough desert for 16 people. It wouldn’t even be a serving each.

Could you get people to bring some things?

True. OP would be better off doing a big pot of something and then the rest as extra bits. Then ensure that each person will have a decent portion of everything. Best to have left overs than people going without.

Nowhere near enough food. As others have noted, you won't get anything like enough cheese for £10. But there's plenty of other things on there that are suspiciously cheap as well, indicating that you haven't got a big enough quantity of them, basically nearly everything. £3 on crisps and £2.50 on coleslaw (unless you're making you're own and already have the wet ingredients so just need to buy the veg), £1 on cheese twists, £10 on drinks etc. etc. It sounds like you've only budgeted for one packet of most things, maybe two of some, which is nothing like enough for 16.

Thanks for all your thoughts

It's been a bit of an eye opener as I was expecting people to say it was a ridiculous amount to spend, instead people are saying the portion sizes are tight!

May end up more like £150 🙈

Some salad , and carrot , pepper and cucumber batons

Gosh, I think that's excellent value for 16 people on snacky/festive food, which is always going to be more expensive and less value for money than say a basic roast.

We hosted 6 for Christmas a few years ago (plus ourselves which at the time was 2 adults and a toddler). Granted it was Christmas Eve, Christmas day and Boxing Day plus breakfasts/coffee/tea/snacks in between meals, plus alcohol (and they drink a lot of alcohol!) and it cost me £800 bloody quid!

No nice cheese is only £4 for a large block.

I would ditch the fruit salad and (with regret) the hot chocolate and bulk up the amounts of other things. £3 is very little for crisps.
What would you expect a sample of one or two people to eat?
I'd probably have crisps (loads), cheese (also loads), pigs in blankets, some yule log and a mince pie. I'd like some carrot, celery and cucumber to dip in dips. I might also have gammon in a part baked roll and go back up again if there was anything left. Bear in mind I haven't had my lunch yet so feeling quite hungry.

I'd happily "pay" for all this by bringing something for the buffet, something to drink and something for you to drink.

You don't need hot chocolate, certainly not made in a slow cooker! And you don't need things like cheese twists or those puff pastry things. You'd be much better off making a pot of chilli and a pot of rice for the same cost.