Well as I mentioned in my last post, last Saturday I hosted a "Sugar and Spice and all things Nice" dinner party - the theme chosen to celebrate the imminent arrival of my friends baby girl in June. There was definately a fair bit of organisation, planning and prep required, and I worked all day saturday, but I think it turned out a success. Just seeing the girls faces when they saw the table was worth it!

Minor DISASTER! I had never made the 'baked raspberry cheesecake' before so I wasn't prepared for how much mixture there was...it barely fitted into my tin...and then it rose A LOT in the oven. I honestly didnt know if this would be edible or not....check out the pics further down the post to find out what happened....

The table cloth was an old sheet I decided to keep (I hate throwing material out...so many possibilities for making things!). I tied 'pink' scarves and bits of 'pink' material around the chair backs for added colour. And because of the Sugar and Spice theme, I scattered the table with sweets, cinnamon sticks and cloves - and then some sparkly spots and butterflies for added girly-ness!

The menu! I found a great website called Download and Print which has a whole range of beautiful invitations which you can download, costomise on Word and then print! So I was able to find a pretty invitation (which was actually for a wedding!) and adjust it so that it showed the evenings menu instead. I thought this added a fun touch to the night. Since I didnt have accesss to a colour printer I just coloured the butterflies in by hand afterwards. I didnt own the right colour napkins so I just bought paper ones, wrapped them in pink ribbon and slotted a lollypop in with it - and then a pink raspberry ruffle at the corner of the menu for extra 'sugar'!!

The menu was as follows:

- these were made by drizzling a teaspoon of homemade raspberry and strawberry cooli (heat raspberries, strawberries and icing sugar in a pan until jucy, mash with a fork and squeeze through a sieve), a squeeze of lime juice and then top up with cava. Mocktails were made for the drivers and the mum-to-be by substituting the cava with sparkling mineral water (which had a slight lime and elderflower flavour)

- I substituted the mushrooms for sun-blushed tomatoes, which added a lovely zing to the flavour

- with added baby corn (coz I love it!)

- with added strawberries which was a nice extra. And served with vanilla ice cream and creme fraiche

The food:

Ta-da, once the cheesecake had cooled, it dropped back down to 'normal' size and after slicing and decorating with cooli, berries and cream it was 'presentable'...and tasted pretty nice too!!! No close-up of the starter (but if you look at the first pic with the girls at the table they are about to tuck into the roasted peppers - so if you squint you can see it!

The girls enjoying their cocktails (all wearing pink of course!)

Trying to feel for a kick!

And lets just throw in a pic of the hostess in her 'pink' outfit as well!

So a fun night for all and I think the girls had a good time :)

xxx

p.s. BOY did a cook too much rice! So with the left over I made a mix between Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice) and egg friend rice with chicken, peas, sweetcorn, peppers, tomato, corriander and lime for sunday dinner with Sir - tasted delish! And ALSO spicy tomato, bean and chorizo soup with rice thrown in, which we are having for lunch today. I'll see if I can take some pics.

I'm also adding this to Made by You Mondays over at Skip to My Lou - check out loads of other brilliant homemade craftiness over there by clicking on the link below: