Stephanie Louw loves creating gorgeous parties for her kids, and usually does everything herself – keeping things simple yet special.
She held her son Matthew's first birthday party at her parent's farm in Clanwilliam, and it had a jungle/wild one theme. They rented a jumping castle for the bigger kids, and brought in a sandpit for the small kids.
For the decor, all the toy animals were from the Crazy Store, while the bear and giraffe for the cake were from Toy Kingdom. She made the little flags on the cake herself, and had Matthew's T-shirt printed at a local printing shop.
Stepanie served the following:
- Cupcakes (bought from woolworths, I took the sprinkles off and place an animal on top)
- S'mores on a stick,
- Bowl of bananas
- Bags of popcorn
- Chocolate Steri Stumpies
- Smarties
- Peanut brittle
- Chocolate-chip cookies
- S'mores packets to take home
- Cake (baked and iced by Stephanie)
Stepanie's top party tips:
- Start prepping in advance
- If you don't have to make/bake it….buy it! Store-bought stuff is just as good!
Double Chocolate Cake
Recipe by Grace Stevens
50g semi-sweet chocolate
1½ cups sugar
180ml hot coffee
1 ¼ cups flour
3/4 cup NOMU / Woolworths cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp baking powder
1 ¼tsp salt
2 large eggs
90ml oil
180ml well-shaken buttermilk
¾ tsp vanilla
- Line a 20cm loose bottom cake tin.
- Finely chop chocolate and mix into coffee.
- Allow to stand and mix occasionally.
- Sift sugar, flour, cocoa powder, bicarb, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.
- Beat eggs together until light.
- Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla and melted chocolate mixture to the eggs.
- Add to sugar and flour mix and combine well.
- Fill cake tin and bake for 50 minutes.
- Allow to cool before removing from the tin
The baked cakes freeze really really well
ICING
2 cups sifted Icing sugar
1 cup soft butter
60ml NOMU / Woolworths Cocoa
Milk
Beat butter until creamy in a mixer, add icing sugar and cocoa and mix until combined. If you need a more spreadable icing just add 1 tbsp of milk at a time until desired consistancy.
