This past Saturday we enjoyed a lovely party for Oliver with family. I’ve never hosted a party before, so I was nervous about having enough food, but we ended up with plenty extra for us to eat this week as leftovers.
We really wanted to make all of our food plant-based to show that it is easy and still delicious sans animal products. The night before Ezekiel chopped veggies for the burritos/taco salad and I baked cakes and stirred up frosting. For once, Oliver slept through the insanely loud noise of the food processor. I let the cakes and frosting chill overnight.
Saturday morning I ran 11 miles (which Oliver and Ezekiel slept through the whole time, wow!) and had a delicious breakfast of banana walnut French toast.
With cool cakes, I got to work on cutting, layering, frosting, and decorating the cakes.
Sadly, the gel colors were runny, so the one became squiggly lines and the other said “You’re 1” with runny dots. Haha. Oh well. The Oreos looked nice and it tasted good.
I usually eat healthful things and avoid sugar, but one must indulge every once in awhile. The cake was far from healthy, but wonderfully delicious. Made similar to many other cakes but instead of cow milk I had soymilk, vegan butter, and I tried coconut sugar for fun.
Oliver got his own smash cake which I did use a healthier recipe because I didn’t want him to throw up, never having anything like this before. His cake tasted great too and I’m trying to not eat all the extra (I only used half of the cake baked in an 8×8 pan for his smash cake). His cake had sugar, but the healthier swaps were oats grounded into flour, almond butter to replace butter, and blueberries instead of Oreos mixed in.
Both cakes had a frosting made from coconut milk, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and sugar. Luckily, I tested it earlier in the month because the original recipe did not have any sugar; boy, was that bitter! When chilled it gets very thick, but if left out it will melt. Not one that will likely get very smooth. Maybe if I had proper cake decorating tools, but I got rid of those a long time ago!
I loved how the food turned out. We also had water and flavored water. The best buy was a balloon from the dollar store. A couple times there have been balloons floating in the grocery store and Oliver always seemed so interested in them so I knew I’d have to get one for his birthday. He stared in awe as it was filled and brought over and played with it a lot at his party and is still playing with it in his room.
Thanks to those who brought Oliver awesome gifts. It was fun to see Oliver help opening gifts since at Christmas he wasn’t quite old enough yet.
The best part was cake time. Here is the messy boy with his cake!
Unfortunately, he was moving his arms and elbowed the cake, sending it down to the floor. But he enjoyed it while it lasted. I’d say the first time ever throwing a party was a success. Here’s to another fun year of learning and growing, Oliver!
Countercultural Krolls 