Please may I have some help with dd's party food?

[tissy]

I have to cater for 25-30 six year olds next Saturday. The party is at a local sports centre and there are no cooking facilities, so I have to take everything with me. Party is at lunchtime, so I'm assuming most kids will not have been fed prior to the party.

I'm struggling with what food to give

I have a paper plate for each child and was thinking:

a couple of mini sausage rolls
a quarter of a mini pizza
a finger roll with cheese or ham in
a handful of crisps

would some carrot sticks/ baby tomatoes be too poncy?

maybe some seedless grapes?

have small cartons of apple and orange juice and some emergency bottles of water

puddings:

is jelly expected? I can't find those paper jelly bowls anywhere, but resorting to pre-packed is about 30p per child

ice cream with sprinkles if bowls can be found (but would have to dole it out there and then, as can't transport it in bowls easily)

a mini roll/ jammy dodger?

cake will be cut and wrapped and put in party bags to take home

any suggestions would be gratefully received!

TIA

If you want to do ice cream, you could do cones and let them dip them in sprinkles? Combines an activity with pudding

Definitely involve some fruit and salad options - IME cucumber, carrots and celery always get eaten, as do grapes.
Cocktail sausages
Breadsticks

In our house a party wasn't a party without party rings

Oh and they never eat as much as you think they will

when I do parties I do food wise.......

no rolls (they seem to be ignored). instead I do tiny little triangle sanwiches. they are eaten easily, and if there are adults there they eat them too.

mini pizzas (I count 1 or 2 per child)
cocktail sausages (about 4 per child)
(no sausage rolls, also ignored)
crisps....cheese puffs/quavers/onion rings. 1 pack does 3/4 kiddies
cheese cubes (1 per child)

puddings.....

rice krispie cakes (easy to make.....1 per child)
fairy cakes (I buy them ready made but plain and ice them myself.....easy )
jaffa cakes/party rings/jammy dodgers/choc fingers

I don't tend to do ice cream or jelly as they play fight with it IME.....altho maybe you could take some ice lollys/pops in a freezer bag. depends on how long the wait will be before they are eaten or if the centre can put them in their freezer for you.

oooh....forgot carrot sticks and cucumber sticks. cherry tomotoes. grapes. chopped apple. peeled and separated satsumas.

already lots of good suggestions, can't add much, lol...

instead of sausage rolls, those cheese ones go down a treat...

Quiche is also a good option, and if you go for a ordinary sized one (rather then those party ones, you cna precut and it's easily transported in the aluminium dish!

I personally hate to make Sandwiches/Rolls of any kind, so we tend to get Baguette or Bloomers and take a tub of butter and a few knifes (as well as a Breadknife) and people can cut as and when and put Butter on themselfs...

Mini Toad in the Holes are lovely, too...

little Meatballs

Dips (for Vegetable sticks and Breadsticks, etc...if you do those...)

Cheesestraws

Chickendrum sticks work well, too

Ooh yes - they luuurrrve chicken legs - make sure they're free range though

Oh, and we always had top-hats at our parties - melted chocolate into the base of a petit-four case, with a large marshmallow plonked in the centre.

You'll find they tend to get snaffled by shameless mums though

Keep it really simple. No jelly or fussy stuff. tbh I'd leave the icecream - where would you store it, and even if there were a freezer, if it had melted on the way you could give them food poisoning !

Mixture of chopped veg/fruit, cocktail sausages (you can buy packss of precooked), novelty crisps (hula hoops, cheesy ones), maybe some cubed cheese (loose or on sticks with pineapple), finger rolls with ham, cream cheese or marmite etc sliced, some choc finger biscuits(you can get party packs) and small fairy cakes (Sainsbury's do packs of mini ones) plus drinks. If you are very organised get party boxes and prepack one for each, then they can take hoem whatever they don't eat.

thanks for the suggestions so far

At DD's party, we bought some of those brown paper lunch sacks like American children seem to take to school (on Happy Days anyway and filled those with the food. They could then put all the rubbish back into the bags and save us clearing up squashed sarnies! If you're set on ice-cream, Lidl do some of those little cartons like you get in cinemas for about 10p.

I have always done small sandwiches (either triangles or mini finger rolls) as well as breadsticks, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and carrot sticks and cheese cubes. I also put a couple of tubs of hummus or cheese and chive dip on the table for dipping the breadsticks and veg.

I buy those little cocktail sausages and mini party eggs, as well as Party Rings (can't have a party without those!) and crisps like Quavers or Wotsits.

All totally unhealthy but hey, birthday party food is supposed to be fun!

Long time since I've done one of these, but ...

• food box is good idea; prepacked: at the "savoury" end with two quarter-slice-sized cheese spread sandwiches (crusts-off), two marmite ones, a handful of hula hoops, a few cocktail sausages, two cherry tomatoes, some cucumber sticks, some carrot sticks AND A BABY BEL - emphasised 'cos I don't see that mentioned elsewhere; and at the "sweet" end with grapes and a handful of Iced Gems. Then you have extras of everything on flimsy disposable foil platters down the middle of the table. NB the things that vanished were: cucumber sticks; sausages; hula hoops; and BABY BELs

• to drink - a carton of juice & then more water than you'd ever think possible (so you should have masses of cups)

• jelly separately (I used to do veggie raspberry jelly with mixed summer fruit (from a frozen pack) set into it). Veggie did seem to matter - lots of people asked. Re bowls - the Party Pieces type place does catering packs of nice jelly bowls - delivery quite quick.

Have some posh crisps on hand for grown-ups.

remember out of 30 children there are likely to be a few vegetarians

the parents probably won't think to tell you as they will be expecting a buffet not plated food

Just to add - parties where I did as below were also at a sports centre where there were no facilities - I used to take everything there in big tupperware things & pack & set out the food boxes while party activities were happening. Quite quick once you get into assembly-line mode.

Some people also have a bit of fizz on hand for grown-ups ... I've never quite managed to organise that for our parties, but love it at others'!

Look in Poundland for jelly bowls and paper plates.

tubes of fromage frais seem to go down well - and no need for spoons.

Party boxes are the best as they can take home what they haven't eaten.
What I used to do was ask McDonalds for 30 red boxes that they use for the fries (they were always very obliging as it's good advertising). Then I used to mix up a huge bag of Wotsits, Skips and Quavers then distribute into the fries boxes and put in the party boxes. Saves loads of mess and very popular!

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liking the tubes of fromage frais idea!

will look in Poundland for bowls, thanks for that idea