Birthday Prep: Easy Party Foods
Kids party foods need to impress the littles and the adults alike. You could spend hours prepping snacks, but can make just as a big of an impact with easy-to-prep foods. Whether you’re throwing a party or taking foods to school to share as the birthday kid’s special treat, these ideas will please.
Fruit Creations
“Fruit kabobs are always a hit,” says Lynn Dietz, a preschool teacher at Discovery Canyon Elementary School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thread berries, grapes, banana slices and watermelon chunks on bamboo skewers. Add maraschino cherries to make them super festive and worthy of a birthday celebration. Or, use star-shaped cookie cutters to make star shapes out of watermelon or cantaloupe.
Fruit can be made into other creative designs. “I’ve had bananas made into minions at our parties,” says Dietz. Use unpeeled bananas and adhere a large googly eye to each. Draw eye glass frames and a smile with a non-toxic marker.
Seasonal Treats
Make party foods that fit the season in which your child’s birthday falls. Create a “beach” by preparing a sheet of blue jello in a cake pan, sprinkle with graham cracker crumbs (for sand) and add teddy graham bears sunning themselves on fruit roll-up towels. A few carefully placed cocktail umbrellas complete this fun summer scene.
A child with an October birthday could have shredded cheese stick brooms with pretzel handles or breadstick dough you’ve shaped into bones and baked. At a Christmas birthday, arrange raw broccoli on a platter in a tree shape and adorn with grape tomatoes and a stack of rod pretzels for a trunk. Serve with Ranch dressing for a healthy, fun treat.
Crowd Pleasers
Pinwheels are always a pleaser. Roll turkey and sliced cheese in a tortilla, secure with toothpicks and slice into wheels. For a fairy party, use white bread with the crusts cut off and spread with cream cheese and colored sprinkles before rolling and slicing. For a pizza lover, crescent roll dough makes for a quick crust when spread with tomato sauce, slices of pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. Roll into a cylinder, slice and bake.
Sweet Treats
Cakes and cupcakes can be predictable. Serve an assortment of alternative goodies alongside them:
Skewer jumbo marshmallows and dip in chocolate, then into a topping such as sprinkles, mini candies or coconut. Let cool and place bouquet style in a jar for serving.
Dip whole strawberries in melted white chocolate and dust with colored sugar.
Arrange mini paper cups on a serving tray and fill with chocolate or strawberry milk; hook a mini cookie alongside by cutting a small slit so it sits on the cup.
When you don’t have time, or patience, to bake a cake from scratch, make a birthday cookie. Roll out prepared cookie dough, bake and frost with a birthday theme.
Andrea Cespedes is a professionally trained chef and a Certified Nutrition Therapist. With more than 20 years of experience in the fitness industry, she coaches cycling and running and teaches Pilates and yoga. She is an American Council on Exercise-certified personal trainer, RYT-200 and has degrees from Princeton and Columbia University. She’s the proud mom of two kids, who love dance, rock climbing and animals.
