My long time readers know that I usually post pictures of my kids birthday cakes around this time. This year I took up a lot and made a very ambitious plan for the party. We had the party at home, in our backyard with water balloons, huge bubbles, big balls, dart games, piñata and more. Ayaan has been a huge fan of the series Super Why for last one year. He watches the show whenever he gets screen time and he loves books because of that. So he decided that he wants a Super Why cake. Ishaan came home with a Pokémon card few months back and then had a craze for the cards as well as the show Pokémon – Indigo league on Netflix. So that was what he picked for the cake theme when I gave him few options.
I knew Ayaan would love chocolate cake. So I picked this moist chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for him. He loved it so much that he ate it for 4-5 days till he finished the last morsel of cake. It was loved by all the kids as I had guessed.
Ishaan asked for vanilla cake. I wanted to try out something different. I tried this Italian sponge cake. I have never tried a cake without baking soda or baking powder. So this was totally different. I was very skeptic but it turned out very soft and tasty. I added a layer of buttercream and a layer of mango jam in between two layers. All the grown ups absolutely loved this cake. It tasted a lot like the pastries we get in India. I did not have time to make the figures, so I used some from his collection.
I picked simple dishes for the dinner which did not take too long. Every one of them came out really good. In all it was a fun and successful party. Here was the menu.
Pineapple Salsa
Greek chickpeas salad
Paneer hara bhara kabab and mint chutney
Chicken hariyali kabab
Spicy vegetable noodles
How do you manage to do all these things every time? Will you post your time management for preparing all these dishes? I have been reading your blog regularly and wonder every time about management. I think if you post about your management for daily cooking and cooking for party, that will help lot of people.
Swati, Well, I bake the cake 3 days before and finish all the decorations atleast 1 day before the party. Then the cooking. I try to plan ahead and pick up dishes which don’t take too much time. This time party was Saturday. So I baked cakes on Wednesday. Decorated them on Thursday and Friday (took off from work Friday). By afternoon I was done with cakes which take the most amount of time. Then I prepped for all other dishes. Chopping vegetables, soaking/cooking chickpeas, marinating chicken etc was done Friday evening which did not take too much time. Then I prepared the final dishes on Saturday morning. I am getting better at this with every party. I usually have a good idea of what I am making beforehand (I add some dishes at the last moment too). Picking the right dishes is the most important. Finally, it is all fun for me. I love cooking and hosting, I enjoy it so much that it does not feel like lot of work.
nice presentation of pokemon cake ! children will surely like it!!
Nice presentation on cake ! chidren will surely like it !