My baby boy has been obsessed with Shaun the Sheep, which thankfully is ALL on Netflix including the first film, for about a year now. He point blank refuses to watch anything else and woe betide anyone who wants to have the TV on and it not be Shaun for the obvious displeasure will ruin your viewing until you change your mind and opt sheep. Thankfully it’s pretty good for the whole family, there’s plenty of episodes and we haven’t got sick of it yet and on top of that there’s the new movie ‘Farmageddon’ which is out on October the 18th to keep us going. We went to a preview screening and it was ACE – see my review here.
Of course when it came to Raffie’s second birthday there was no other option for his cake than a Shaun the Sheep one and around this theme I devised a family party with a table full of food to share on a tremendously on trend grazing table which I changed slightly to be ‘Shaun The Sheep’s Grazing Meadow’!
I loved creating this party as grazing tables just look SO good and sheepy element really lent itself to the genre. I begged a freebie off cut of astroturf on my local face book page which acted as a table runner and everything else was created around this. I used a mixture of real and fake foliage, added some fairy lights and bought a bunch of big daisies to scatter the heads on the table alongside some biscuit daisies that I made both on sticks to stand up in an oasis and flat to be scattered with the real flowers. We had trees for donuts too -See below what we did – everyone was very impressed and even if I do say so myself, it did look rather fab!
A Shaun the Sheep Grazing Meadow!This is my daisy patch. A green oasis which fit perfectly inside a basket my Mum had and then we filled the edges with greenery from the garden and biscuit pops which although rustic (piping icing and flooding is HARD) I think looked great!A fruit platter with kebab sticks to make your own and a strawberry yogurt in the middle added a pop of colour!I loved making the donut stands out of logs from the wood store!Cakes DONUT grow on trees!In amongst the apple and carrot slaw, cous cous salad, home made sausage rolls and hand made pizza we had milkshakes which are bottles from Aldi decorated by dipping the rims in white chocolate and then again in hundreds and thousands. I also dipped one edge of a marshmallow in the chocolate and hundreds and thousands which I speared through the straw with a strawberry before filling the bottles with shop bought strawberry milkshake. Easy and very effective!Home made sausage rolls are just behind which are so simple if you use ready rolled and then squeeze sausage meat out of their sausage skins before rolling and egg washing. I sometimes spread chutney on the bottom first which I did for half of these!We had a cheeseboard of dreams because a party isn’t a party without one! There’s some apple slaw behind it which is ridiculously easy to make with grated carrot, matchsticked apples, a squeeze of lemon, some spring onion and shop bought (from Aldi) peri peri mayonnaise!Some ham rolls piled up on a cake stand I like the mini selection of rolls from Waitrose!I home made some mini chicken nuggets and wedges which I sat in these little boats – very cheap on ebay and Amazon!On to the sweet stuff and a bowl of treats had to be included! I wanted them to be mainly pink to go with the milkshakes – I know… Bit mental! You can just see the cous cous salad hidden behind it – get the good stuff out front! I buy a packet of already flavoured cous cous and add a honey and mustard dressing which I make mixing a tablespoon of honey and wholegrain mustard with a glug of extra virgin olive oil then I add chopped baby tomatoes, feta cubes and pomegranate seeds with a sprinkling of spring onion!I made some Shaun the Sheep cake pops but they paled into insignificance next to my Mum’s cake and cupcakes!The cupcakes made by my Mum!And the main event also at my Mum’s hands!I think the table looked great even if I do say so myself – the pizza is also a home made cheat by the way! Dough made in the bread machine then topped with Aldi’s cheapest jar of sauce, grated mozzarella and also a ball of mozarella broken up with a grinding of black pepper on top! Looks and tastes home made because it is but it’s really easy!It was exactly what I wanted it to be!Then I rearranged the table a bit for the cake as most of the food had gone!Even with felled donut trees it looked pretty great!My baby boy is two and he LOVED his cake and party as much as we did!A brilliant theme and I’m definitely doing a grazing table again!Happy birthday little Raffie, my Shaun the Sheep mad boy!
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