Tuesday 22 April 2014

How To Throw A Chocolate Tea Party...


The Big Chocolate Tea Party logo

Yesterday evening, I hosted a Big Chocolate Tea Party to raise money for The Sick Children's Trust - the idea for the campaign is for the charity to raise as much money as possible throughout the month of April by hosting chocolate themed events - and I couldn't wait to participate - the idea of eating a shed load of chocolate after all my calorie counting was certainly a welcome prospect! 

I decided to theme the party on the colours yellow (my favourite) and brown (for chocolate), and got busy coming up with ideas for decorating my home, and working on putting together a collection of prizes for a raffle on the night. 

THE DECORATIONS

I made a few purchases to pull together the decorations for the party which included:


- a brown and white spotty table cloth

-some yellow paper plates and cups
-some yellow/white and brown/white stripy paper straws
-some yellow spotty napkins
-some yellow/white stripe sweetshop style bags
-some yellow and brown tissue paper
-some brown/white butchers style twine


...all of which I purchased on eBay.

The wonderful people over at Bimbily sent me an absolutely awesome DIY Word Banner (Multicolour) priced at £7.90 for me to decorate the main party room - I have to say this was my most favourite part of the decor - this banner is SO fun, and really bold. I love the fact that it's re-usable, and I know I'll be brining it out for every occasion now! I spelled out 'Chocolate Makes The World Go Round' 'Flake' 'Oreo' 'Wispa' and 'Prizes' for the raffle table - I think you'll agree it really added some pizzaz to the room. A huge thanks to Bimbily for their kindness in sending it over. 

letter banner

chocolate tea party decor

DIY letter banner

Next, I used this fab tutorial from Martha Stewart to make some tissue paper pom poms. I've never made these before, but always thought they looked effective, and I was so pleased with how they turned out. The tutorial is really simple to follow, and I love what a big bold colourful splash you can add to a party just using a little bit of tissue paper! 

tissue pompoms and popcorn garland
pom poms and popcorn

tissue pompoms
giant paper pom poms

tissue pompoms and popcorn garland
the pom pom/popcorn doorway! 

tissue pompoms and popcorn garland
edible decor! 

I also used my popcorn machine to make a big bowl of popcorn which I turned into a popcorn garland by threading it onto baker's twine using a large needle. I'd seen this idea on Pinterest and it had really stuck in my head- I'd been meaning to give it a go for a while, and it worked like a dream. Nice sustainable and cheap to make decorations - I guess you could spray paint the popcorn beforehand to make it an even brighter decoration.

The final touches came from the eBay purchases for the table…

chocolate tea party table

And a poster from The Sick Children's Trust which I decorated myself with cut out chocolate goodies from the Waitrose and Tesco magazines! 

the big chocolate tea party poster

All that was left to do was for us to get our glad rags on ….

Baby Bert in a Tux
The Bertster dressed up for the occasion! *too cute*

CHOCOLATE GOODIES…

So the way the tea party worked was that everyone paid £3 to attend, and agreed to bring something chocolatey to add to the buffet table, and some extra money to buy raffle tickets. Some guests kindly donated raffle prizes too - a huge thank you to everyone who donated. I also requested that everyone also bought plastic boxes with them to take a goody box home (as we didn't want to be left with any food at the end - it would make calorie counting impossible as it would be far too tempting!!) 

So, I had to decide what I should bake for the buffet table - and to be honest there was no contest - I have been desperate to try baking a chocolate honey cake that I tasted at my friend Janet's house last year - and so I knew that was the cake I had to make for the chocolate feast. It was also on my baking challenge list for 2014, so it ticked another bake off my list for me as well. I'll be sharing the recipe and the making process with you tomorrow on the blog (don't miss it - it's a seriously good bake!)…but until then, here's a sneak preview as to how it turned out…

Chocolate Honey Cake

Also on the buffet table we had….

-Cadbury's Creme Egg Brownies
-Chocolate muffin/mini egg cakes
-Chocolate Cheesecake
-Chocolate dipped fruit
-Chocolate dipped peppermint creams
-Chocolate chip cake
-Cookies
-Nutella Sandwiches
-Chocolate and Cheese Melba toasts
-Chocolate Cornflake Cakes
-Chocolate Covered Peanuts
-Chocolate Covered Raisins
-Gooey Chocolate Pudding with Double Cream
-White Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting

hahahaha - thats A LOT of chocolate!

I also put out some huge bowls of salty crisps - they were very much needed! 

Chocolate Cheesecake
chocolate cheese cake made by Anwyn 


Mini Egg Chocolate Muffins
mini egg chocolate muffins by Danni, Charlie & Kath


Gooey chocolate pudding
gooey chocolate pudding with double cream made by Val (this was incredible!) 


Chocolate and Cheese Melba Toasts
Chocolate and cheese melba toasts by Danni, Charlie and Kath


Creme Egg Brownies
Creme Egg Brownies made by one of my besties Liz (thanks mate, these were to die for!)

I didn't manage to get a photo of everything, but those pictures have definitely given you the gist of what was on offer! I hope you're all salivating now!


chocolate feast
MY DINNER :-) wow, this was an awesome treat! 

THE RAFFLE…

The wonderful people over at GuyLian chocolates kindly donated two huge boxes of choccies to the raffle.

Another of the prizes donated was an awesome reusable paper storage sack from PeaStyle - this is an uber cool home accessory which can be used for storing pretty much anything in a ultra-trendy way. 

Le Sac en Papier storage bag
Fab raffle prize - thanks Pea Style! 

A huge thank you to PeaStyle for their kind donation - it is much appreciated! And my best friend Danni won the prize, she was so happy as she'd had her eye on it all night! 

Chocolate Raffle Prizes

Some of the other prizes up for grabs included:

-homemade "Epic" hot choc powder
-A bottle of champagne
-A box of Sainbury's Tatse the Difference belgian chocolates
-a Green and Blacks cookery book
-some homemade Chilli jam
-A Green & Blacks tasting kit
-a make your own purse sewing kit from wonderful Janet at Kitchen Table Sewing 
-A large Thornton's Easter egg

...as well as some other scrummy edible chocolate-based prizes which I didn't get a chance to photograph!

Thanks to all those who bought tickets.

Most people went home with a prize, so smiles all round!

PICS FROM THE NIGHT...

Mags and Liz at Mrs Bishop's Chocolate Tea Party


Rhi at Mrs Bishop's Chocolate Tea Party


Lovely Ladies at Mrs Bishop's Chocolate Tea Party


at Mrs Bishop's Chocolate Tea Party


at Mrs Bishop's Chocolate Tea Party

Mrs Bishop's Chocolate Tea Party

I'm very pleased to say that 20 people attended the tea party, and we managed to raise over £150 for The Sick Children's Trust so a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped make it a great success! 

Today, I'm off to deliver this *awesome* goody box to some friends who couldn't make the night but deserve an extra special yummy treat…

Best chocolate goodie box ever
best goodie-box EVER?

Did you all have a marvellous Easter? 

Have you eaten your weight in chocolate? 

I do hope so! 

Mrs B
xxx

If you'd like to donate some money to The Sick Children's Trust you can do so by visiting their website.