The Long-Awaited Baby Shower Party

This is what occupied my mind mostly for the last 2 months, and it's where all my energy and time went to for the last 2-3 weeks, it's this baby shower.

This time, it was for my own brother and sister-in-law, they've been trying for a while and they've finally been blessed with soon-to-be baby girl. It was only appropriate if I want to throw them the perfect baby shower for their first one. That is why the planning was happening for a whole 2 months from the decoration, food, facility, place, guest, theme, etc. to make everything perfect (or so I hope). My sister-in-law, J, has a very cheerful and bright personality, she likes all things colorful, so it was a no-brainer either that the theme is green-yellow-orange color and Spring, that includes butterflies, bees, flowers.

The party was at one of our friends, D's house. He has a wonderful house with pool area, which is nice so that people can also hang out in the backyard. I was trying to make everything perfect from the food to the decoration, and fortunately we're surrounded by talented friends to make an under-budget party looks like a really well-done one! Thanks to Irene for being in charge of the whole decoration, she's a gem. She knows how to take a party to another level. With hanging paper pom-poms, grass, flowers, she made the event completely gorgeous, beyond my expectations! Special thanks to Cika too for all the printing labels and tags, it's more than fabulous!! Thanks to Nana for helping me made the figurines for the cake :). For everybody who helped with the food, crafts, favors, they're super talented people.

After deciding on the food, and the other details, I can finally concentrate on the desserts. Since this blog is mainly about baking, I'll concentrate more on the dessert part :). Dessert table was a must at this party, it's not even an option as we know how much Joan loves desserts. Heck, I try to have dessert table at every party I'm organizing :). I'm no dessert table expert, I'm just starting and I can't say that the previous dessert tables I made were perfect because let's be honest, they weren't. I tried to pick desserts that fit the theme, which involves some yellow, green, and orange colors. Mango, pistachio, passion fruit are the main flavors for this, I was thinking about lemon but the mother-to-be is not really a fan of the sour stuff. The choice of the dessert changed daily, mostly because some of the ingredients I needed wasn't available at that time.

So here's the menu of the dessert table:
- Mini chocolate cupcakes with mango and pistachio buttercream
- Candy-coated marshmallow lollipops
- Mango cheesecake on a brownie base
- Passion fruit pudding in petite glasses
- Green tea cookies
- Mango macarons
- Pistachio macarons
- Passion fruit macarons
- 2-tiered cake (mascarpone cheesecake and raspberry jelly filling for the top tier, and mocha praline cake for the bottom tier)
- almond meringue cookies (by our friend, Sukma)

Favor:
- Spring chicken cakepops (inspired by this wonderful creation by bakerella, made with chocolate cake, buttercream, and rum flavoring)

Drinks:
- Water with mint and lime slices
- Mango punch

Entree (no pictures):
- Indonesian wedding salad
- Chicken satay
- Spicy tofu with lemongrass, jalapeno, and tomatillo
- Indonesian chicken curry
- Fried noodle
- Meatball Soup

It wasn't all smooth sailing making this happened, time is the enemy as predicted and this time, the hot weather added to the list. It was super hot that particular week and my AC wasn't working. All the frosting are soft and became a gooey mess, the macarons are not all perfect due to the humid weather, the candy coating on the marshmallow doesn't set, the cakepops kept falling off due to the frosting not set, everything that can go wrong, went wrong. It was frustrating especially since I had to make the wedding anniversary cake at the same time too. I took Friday off of work so that I can work in the kitchen. I basically stood in the kitchen from 10am-11pm non-stop for two straight days plus late nights here and there, and even that still wasn't enough time.

For the dessert table, I wanted to have some dimension, which is why I used some boxes and covered them with yellow tablecloth for the jars, the cake, and the marshmallow pops. Unfortunately, we didn't have three jars of the same size for the macarons so we had to make do with one smaller one. I did put the small one in the middle but it was completely covered by the cake in front of it, so I had to switch the position.

Despite all the problems that happened, I was actually surprised myself that everything came together nicely. It was nice having an outdoor and indoor party so that people doesn't have to cramped up in a room, which can be a problem when there are about 70 people (including kids) walking around. The breeze from the backyard was also nice and the kids are playing around the pool. Thanks to all the friends who helped making this party happened. The food were superb, the decor was super nice, and as far as the dessert, I think everybody enjoyed it. And the most important thing is that D and J (my brother and sis-in-law) were surely happy and we wish them the best for the upcoming bundle of joy. I hope this shower can send them off nicely to be a good parent-to-be.

After this party, I was determined not to bake for a month! But I guess I can't stay off the kitchen for too long. Regardless of every problem we encountered in making this happens, I totally enjoy it and can't wait for the next special occasion to make a better one.

Hello!