Food Catering Ideas For 1st Birthday Party

A first birthday is a party for adults that happens to have a baby in it. The birthday cake gets photographed, the celebrant eats about four things and then falls asleep on somebody, and the other thirty people stand up for two hours and work steadily through the platters. Cater for the room you actually have and the day looks after itself.

We have sent a lot of these out of Fortitude Valley and the shape of the order barely changes. Twenty-five to forty guests. Two thirds of them adults. A two-hour window built around a nap, usually 10am or 3pm. And a guest list that is mostly other parents, which means most of the room will be eating with one hand while the other hand holds a child.

The rules for the under-twos are shorter than most menus. Nothing on a skewer and nothing on a toothpick, because at a party where half the guests are at knee height a stick is a hazard before it is a garnish. No whole grapes and no whole cherry tomatoes; halve them lengthways, not across. Nothing that stains, which rules out beetroot, bottled tomato sauce and most dark berries, all of which end up on an outfit somebody ironed. Keep every piece to about the size of an adult thumbnail and soft enough to squash between two fingers.

How much food, and where it sits

Quantity is where first-time hosts get it wrong in both directions at once. Small children eat three or four pieces and leave; they are at a party to move, not to eat. Adults standing up for two hours eat eight to ten pieces each, and more than that if the party runs over lunch. So work the numbers off the adults, add one small tray of soft things for the children, and do not scale anything to the full head count on the invitation.

The other thing worth deciding early is where the food sits. One table at adult height and one low tray within reach of the children keeps the two crowds apart, and it stops the moment where a toddler pulls a corner of the tablecloth and takes the fruit platter with it. Put the low tray somewhere you can see from the kitchen.

What follows is the list we give parents when they ring and ask what to order. It splits in two, because a first birthday is genuinely two parties in one room. Everything on it comes off our party foods range, and all of it can be made at home if you would rather cook than order.

For the celebrants and friends menu

This is the low tray. Small, soft, one-handed, and nothing that needs teeth the guest may not have yet. Four things is plenty. A one-year-old presented with six options will pick up all six and eat none of them.

Tea sandwiches and mini cupcakes

1. Tea sandwiches. The thing everybody eats and nobody remembers ordering. Our sandwich catering platters go out cut into triangles for adults, but for this age group ask for fingers instead. A triangle has a point that a small hand crushes on the way to the mouth; a finger is already the shape of a fist. Crusts off for the under-threes, crusts on for everyone else, and the two can share a platter.

Two things decide whether a sandwich survives a party. Spread to the edges, which seals the bread against the filling, and keep the wet ingredients in the middle away from the crust. Cucumber, tomato and anything dressed will grey the bread from the outside in if they sit against it. And do not overfill. A sandwich with too much in it is a sandwich a small child will take apart on the carpet to see what is inside.

Fillings that work for a mixed room: cream cheese and cucumber, mashed avocado, tuna, ham and cheese, grated cheese with chutney, chopped hard-boiled egg with margarine, and vegemite scraped thin rather than spread. Avocado browns, so that one goes on last if you are making them yourself.

If you are building them at home, do it about an hour ahead and keep them under a clean damp tea towel in the coolest room in the house. Not in the fridge. Bread stales fastest at fridge temperature, which is the opposite of what everyone assumes, and a platter that has spent the morning in there arrives at the table dry and curled at the corners.

2. Mini cupcakes. A mini is one or two bites, and that is the entire argument for it here. A full-size cupcake handed to a one-year-old becomes a full-size cupcake on the floor. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and red velvet under buttercream covers every taste in the room, and the tray looks like more than it costs.

Two things caterers know about buttercream. It is comfortable up to about twenty-five degrees and unhappy above it, so in a Brisbane summer the mini cupcakes stay in the coolest room and come out when the cake does, not two hours before while you are still setting up. And ask for a lower swirl on the ones going to the children. A swirl as tall as the cake itself is there for the photographs, and it is the part that ends up in hair.

Anything decorated needs notice. Decorated cakes and decorated cupcakes take two to three business days, so book those before you book anything else on the list. Plain minis are quicker. Click to see more finger food catering ideas for your party.

Fresh fruit and devilled eggs

3. Fresh fruit. The tray that always empties, at every party, regardless of what else is on the table. A Fresh fruits platter is also the cheapest way to make a spread look generous, which is why it is the first thing we suggest when somebody is trying to feed forty people on a set budget.

Cut small, cut late. Rockmelon, honeydew, strawberries, pineapple, halved grapes and apple slices, all at about thumbnail size so a child can chew them without help. Melon and berries release water once they are cut, so fruit prepared at eight for a party at eleven sits in its own juice by the time the guests arrive. Ours is cut the morning it goes out for exactly that reason. If you are cutting apple at home, brush it with a little lemon juice or it browns within twenty minutes.

4. Devilled eggs. Soft, no chewing required, and one of the few high-protein things a one-year-old will finish. They are also the shortest-lived tray on the table. An hour out of the fridge on a warm day is the limit, so put them out as the guests arrive rather than while you are still arranging everything. Halve and fill them at the last minute; an egg that has sat cut for two hours weeps, and the filling slides.

For adults and older child menu

This is where the food actually goes, because these are the guests who are actually eating. Everything here is hearty, warm or substantial, and none of it needs cutlery, because almost nobody at a first birthday gets to sit down.

Party pies and rice paper rolls

1. Party pies and sausage rolls. No kids' party is complete without them, and it is the grown-ups who empty the tray. Party beef pies are lean beef mince with garlic and seasoning; the sausage rolls are spiced beef with onion flakes and breadcrumbs. Both are the small versions of something everyone in the room already knows, which is most of why they work.

Hot food is the only thing on this list with a clock running on it. A party pie holds its pastry for about twenty minutes out of the oven and is ordinary after forty, so send out half the tray when people arrive and hold the rest for the second wave after the cake. Reheating at home: 180 degrees for ten minutes, on a wire rack rather than a solid tray, because a solid tray steams the base and the pastry underneath stays pale.

One safety note that gets overlooked at a party full of small children. A party pie is far hotter in the middle than the outside suggests, and it stays that way for several minutes. Give them five before they go anywhere near a child, and keep the hot tray on the adult table, not the low one.

2. Vietnamese rice paper rolls. Fresh, loaded with herbs and salad, filled with proper protein and dressed with something light rather than oily. They are easy to hold, they do not crumble, and they give the parents in the room something that is not pastry. They are also naturally gluten free, which is worth knowing before somebody has to ask; dietary requirements are marked in our product names so nobody has to make an announcement to find out what they can eat.

Lay them in a single layer and never stack them. The wrappers stick to each other within minutes and tear when you pull them apart, which turns a tidy platter into a pile. Keep the sauce beside them and not on them, too: a dressed rice paper roll goes translucent and soft in about ten minutes. Serve them cool, not cold, because straight out of the fridge the wrapper goes tough.

Mini quiches and what to skip

3. Mini quiches. Lorraine is bacon, onion and cheese in a small pastry case. The spinach and pumpkin version is vegetarian, and it is the one we send when the order does not say anything about dietary requirements, because it is the safest thing on a table full of strangers. Both are protein and vegetables in one hand-sized piece, which is more than most party food manages.

A quiche is the useful one on a long table because it is as good warm as it is hot, and still reasonable at room temperature an hour later. That makes it the item to put out first while you are still working out how the afternoon is going to run. It is also the piece older children reliably eat, which is not true of much else that contains vegetables.

Two more that come up on the phone often enough to mention. Cheese and crackers is a trap at this party, because crackers go soft next to anything moist and small children reduce them to crumbs on the floor within minutes. And a grazing table looks the part but wants an adult watching it all afternoon, which on this particular day you will not have.

Ordering, delivery and pick-up

A first birthday does not need to be a stressful one, and the food is the part you can take off your own hands entirely. Order by 4pm and it arrives the next day, with no last-minute surcharge for ordering late. Delivery starts at $19 on orders over $150 and reaches more than 50 Brisbane suburbs, Saturday at the same rate. Pick-up is from 7am at 159 Knapp St, Fortitude Valley, if the party is early and you would rather collect on the way.

Everything is made by hand in that kitchen, on the day it goes out. The one thing to sort first is anything decorated, because a decorated cake or decorated cupcakes need two to three business days and the rest of the order does not.

The celebrant will not remember a minute of it. That is not an argument for doing less, it is an argument for spending the two hours in the room instead of the kitchen. Order the food, set the low tray where you can see it, and let somebody else worry about the platters.