cake – Urban Suburban Mommy

To birthday party or not?

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Urban Suburban Mommy Posted in The Struggle is Real .

Recently, for some reason, discussions about birthday parties keep coming up. Mamas that get stressed over how many kids to invite. Dads that can’t fathom sorting out food for all the dietary restrictions. Parents that feel the expense is ludicrous. The mama on my right declared that “Parties are such a waste of money!” while the mama on my left retorted “Seriously? You’d deprive your child of a birthday party? That’s selfish!”

And before the big guns could come out, I tried to diffuse the whole conversation with a nice solid “Everyone has to do what’s right for their family.” which worked.

(It always works!)

Personally, I think we’ve gotten a little out of control with expectations that are hard to fulfill. It’s happened with Weddings, it’s happened with Sweet 16s. Now it’s happening with birthday parties.

When one mom started talking budgets, she mentioned a cake for over $150. Food was hundreds of dollars because they’ve got a big family. Loot bags, branded theme paper products, an entertainer, a hall…

And then I understood why the budget was just bursting!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you *shouldn’t* throw a gala affair for the little one’s first birthday. Go ahead and find the perfect venue for the your kid’s 7th birthday. Spend what you want.

But realize you don’t have to.

Sometimes expectations get out of control. Sometimes it’s us parents – we forget that they’re just kids and don’t really understand. Even more – the party is not for them, it’s for us. We like throwing parties and we want to do it up. We have a vision. It becomes about fulfilling that vision.

I’ve thrown birthday parties for under $100 and I’ve thrown them for hundreds, (and gotten a smidge carried away, I admit).

I have this thing about birthdays. My mom taught me that we should celebrate ourselves, and I take birthdays very seriously (as in, it’s all about moi!). It’s the one day a year that you can make it all about you – and I do believe everyone deserves their day, including my husband and myself!

Favourite clothes, favourite food, a gift that they’ve really wanted, That’s the start. The kids never have to go to school on their birthdays – in fact, I’ve never worked on my birthday, and I’m 45.

I always ask the boys what they want to do. They can go ride rollercoasters, ask to go to a hotel for a weekend (check out my post on staycations) and they can also have a party if they want one, and they’ve always wanted one. (If they didn’t, that would be a different story).

I like to do big parties with all of their friends – the whole class and the whole daycare – because I want to celebrate my child. I want all of their friends to celebrate them, too. They won’t remember the presents, they won’t remember exactly what went on at the party, but they’ll always remember the big celebration and the fuss made over them.

When they were younger I invited family and some of our friends, but by about 3 they had enough friends for a party – and the family? I’m sure they weren’t too hurt to be let off the hook on a Saturday afternoon.

I’m lucky that one of my kids has a summer birthday. Although I worry about the weather ruining the party every year, I have a big party in the park (no venue fee) and I’ve never been rained out yet. My younger one has a May birthday, and we’ve had to keep it inside. I’ve found really inexpensive venues – the community centre has a cool event room for $29/hour – and they can go swimming too! I live in the city (Urban Mom Elisa) and my home is way too small for anything more than 4 or 5 kids, or I’d have the parties here.

My husband and I have celebrated milestone birthdays for each other with big parties, but the kids really love the tradition. It’s always what they want though, not me. I like baking the birthday cupcakes so the cake has never bit my budget. I have a big box of decorations, plates, napkins, and each year I add to that box, using what I have left over from last year’s festivities. Kids are easy to occupy, they like to play. It’s actually much easier than it sounds to occupy 25 kids for 3 hours.

One year one child wanted a movie birthday, the other wanted a play birthday, some years it’s costumes, other years it’s waterguns. One year we found a mini-zoo to come to the party, the boa constrictor was a huge hit.

Kids are easy to please. Parties don’t need to be $800 at the best local destination. They don’t need to be $2,000 affairs with custom loot bags. They should reflect what the little one wants, without breaking the bank, and most importantly, without bringing on stress. Parties are supposed to be fun – I don’t know how that was forgotten along the way, probably as specialty items became the “must-haves” and the costs started adding up.

There really is no right or wrong answer, and you need to celebrate your child’s birthday (and your own!) the way you see fit, but I love that it’s become a day to celebrate myself, and it brings me great happiness to see that my kids are learning to celebrate themselves in style!

Lime, raspberry & white chocolate drizzle cake

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Urban Suburban Mommy Posted in Delicious Dishes .

LIME, RASPBERRY & WHITE CHOCOLATE DRIZZLE CAKE:
Cut into hearty chunks and served with a dollop of thick cream or Greek yoghurt this is the best way to round off a lovely picnic lunch. You could use blueberries or blackberries instead of raspberries.

Cut this cake into hearty chunks and take it on a summer’s picnic or slice it in delicate fingers and nestle it amongst other dainty morsels on a fine china cake stand for afternoon tea. You can even serve it as a scrumptious dessert – straight from the oven, with clotted cream or crème fraîche. Aromatic limes with tangy raspberries and sweet velvety white chocolate… sheer bliss! I love making this cake in the summer with freshly picked raspberries, but you can make an equally delectable autumnal version by replacing the raspberries with blackberries.

What you need:

One 22cm (9 inch) square cake tin

FOR THE CAKE:

– 200g / 7oz raspberries (1½ cups)
– 225g / 8oz butter (2 sticks)
– 225g / 8oz golden caster sugar * (1 cup)
– 4 free-range eggs (UK medium / USA large) *
– 30g / 1oz ground almonds * (¼ cup)
– 2 limes, zest and juice
– 100g / 3½oz good quality white chocolate, broken into pieces (½ cup)
– 250g / 9oz plain flour * (2 cups)
– 10ml / 2 tsp baking powder

FOR THE LIME SYRUP:

– 85g / 3oz granulated sugar (6 Tbsp)
– Juice of 2 limes
– 45ml / 3 Tbsp boiling water
– 2.5ml / ½ tsp vanilla extract *
– Zest of 1 lime

What you do:

Makes 12 hearty portions (and many more delicate ones)

Before you start, spread the raspberries on a baking sheet and freeze them for about 30 minutes. (If you mix them into the cake batter without freezing them first, they break up and the cake turns bright pink!)

Preheat the oven to 160ºC / 320ºF.

Line the base and sides of the cake tin with baking parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat the eggs lightly and add them to the creamed mixture in several batches, mixing well between each addition.

Add the ground almonds. Grate the lime zest directly into the mixture and then add the juice and fold in the white chocolate chunks.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and mix. Lastly, add the raspberries, taking care not to break them up.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes, until the cake is firm to the touch and golden in colour. You can also test it with a skewer to be sure it is cooked through.

While the cake is baking, make the lime syrup: Combine all the ingredients except the zest in a small heavy-based pan, stir well to dissolve the sugar and then boil for 3 minutes, until it becomes ‘syrupy’.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, prick the surface with a fine skewer. Sprinkle the lime zest onto the cake and spoon the syrup over it.

Leave the cake to cool completely and absorb all the syrup before removing it from the tin.

This cake is perfect as is, but you can decorate it with a drizzle of melted white chocolate or with fresh raspberries and a dusting of icing sugar.

Enjoy the picnic! If you’re craving more royal recipes, there are 100 more delicious dishes created by Robb, in her new cookbook: The Royal Touch: Simply Stunning Home Cooking From A Royal Chef. And if you’d like your very own copy, ACC Art Books is offering Urban Suburban Mommy’s readers a 35% discount, just use promo code: ROYAL to save on your order!

Carolyn Robb was Personal Chef to TRH Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince William and Prince Harry for ten years.

The birthday party rant

Posted on April 8, 2016 by urbansuburbanmommy Posted in The Struggle is Real .

I’m betting I’m not alone in this, so feel free to give me your 2 cents.

Birthday parties drive me nuts! These kid parties are out of control.

Now let me preface this rant by saying, I love throwing birthday parties, I love everything birthday! I think it’s a great opportunity to celebrate. That’s not the problem. It’s the insanity that has started to swirl around the birthday party expectations that’s making my head hurt.

The presents:

I have a $25 limit on birthday presents. I like my kids to pick out their own gifts, since they know what their friends like. I actually take the time to have my kids add stickers, make cards, draw on the paper and have some fun with it – as long as I’ve remembered before the party and am not racing across town to try to get them there on time and whipping into the local toystore last minute (thank goodness they offer free gift-wrapping services!!).

But I’ve got 2 kids. They’re well liked and get invited to a lot of birthdays. We’ve had weekends where there are two birthday parties for each kid. $100 in presents, and that’s not the only parties they’ll have that month. It gets EXPENSIVE! People complain about the cost of daycare, the cost of diapers, well here I am to add birthday gifts to that list! Never mind that my weekends are not my own.

I kind of like these new ‘group gift’ sites that handle the guestlist. There’s one that is used pretty commonly around here, where the child receives money and splits it between a specific present they’re saving for and a charity of their choice. So instead of 25 Lego sets the kid can buy a bike and donate to the local animal rescue. You just transfer the cash right then and there while you’re RSVPing and you’re done.

I don’t love the ‘expectation’ of gift giving, even though it absolutely is an expectation, but it’s organized and easy and so I’m good with this.

The venues:

I feel lucky that my kids are spring and summer babies, I can have parties outdoors. Living in the city, I have a small house that doesn’t easily accommodate more than 5 kids at a time. I feel they won’t remember specific gifts, but they will remember the big, fun parties, so I try to throw them at a community centre party room or the big park at the end of the street. I like to invite the whole class and always offer that siblings are welcome. I find it no trouble at all to bake up a few extra cupcakes and make it fun for all.

I can’t understand some of the venues in the city. I just can’t justify $500, $600, $800 on a kid’s birthday party! It’s not even so much about the money (although I think that is steep!), it’s about the expectations we’re creating for our kids. With a small home, I get it. We need to find a venue, and frankly, it’s pretty sweet to be able to pack up and leave the mess for someone else to clean up, but the aquarium, science centre, museum – these ‘high-end’ party venues don’t make sense to me. The guest list is extremely small, the cost per child very high and then, it seems, there’s a need to outdo other parties, or ‘better than last year’ even.

SMDH. They’re 6, they don’t even know.

The birthday child:

These big venues, the big productions, this can be a bit overwhelming to the birthday child. Know what I hate the most though?

All of the presents.

In years past I tried “your presence is presents enough” type cuteness for No Gifts Please, but they got gifts anyways. And the kids want gifts. My husband pointed out that it was all part of the party expectations for our children. That they would be sad to have all their gifts taken away. Instead, they open them up slowly, over the following few weeks, and enjoy them one at a time – instead of opening them all at once and being overwhelmed and undergrateful.

And all of the gifts – they have enough toys. As much as I LOOOOOOVE Lego, superheroes, trucks, Skylanders and Transformers, they have enough. We tried the “one in, one out” method, but it was painful. We’ve asked them to donate, but I don’t think they’re quite ready for that yet, last year my older one was so stressed out about having to pick what to give away and not enjoy that I quickly put the kybosh on that idea. Why have a party if it’s going to stress your kid out?

The invitations:

I love designing their invitations. I have them printed up at the local copy store and even though I get rave compliments – and offer to do them for other mamas – they’re actually cheaper than buying invites. Especially when you’re handing out 30-40 of them. (Or 60 – like last year, when instead of giving them out to the daycare and the class, Urban Suburban Daddy misunderstood my instructions and stuffed them into all of the daycare cubbies of the other two classes. So we had 3 daycare classes, a school class plus siblings. Lesson learned.)

I also email the invitations to all of the parents. I never know if the kids get them home or not. My son occasionally gives me an invite a few days after a party has already happened.

The politics & the fallout:

“I invited him but he didn’t invite me.”

“I wanted to sit next to the birthday girl.”

“I wanted the piece of cake with the blue rose.”

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHFFFFFFFTTTTTT

Seriously. Sit back at a birthday party and notice how many little squabbles occur over the course of the 2.5 hours. Kids have developed these crazy expectations and are indulged in ways they can’t manage. They are fed junk food and sugared up, and then sent home to mama a very wired, hot mess.

Is it a drop-off party? Do I stay? Do I go? What do I do with my other child if it’s not a drop-off party and numbers are a big deal? I’ve tried to pay for my other child, I’ve tried to find another parent who can take mine. I’ve tried to understand why my son would sooner give up his XBOX than miss a birthday party. It’s a social standing and a testament of friendship – plus they get to do all kinds of cool stuff, from circus classes to science experiments, to being taught how to make pizza.

I have no idea what the solution is, but I feel much better getting that off of my chest!

Suburban Mommy Michelle adds: My son just recently started JK and I too feel like I have now become part of the birthday turbine. In fact, I do remember dropping a pretty penny on my son’s last 4 birthdays. In fact, for what I spent on his 1st birthday party, our family could have enjoyed a vacation instead! Our second is born in the summer, so hoping this helps with eliminating some costs on venue. I do agree that birthdays are out of control – now that I think of it – so is every holiday. We have become such a commercial society. Perhaps instead of presents this year, I will ask if parents minded chipping in for things like daycare, diapers, formula..you get the drill.