Whether or not to have a baby shower can be polarizing for future mothers to be.

Is it naff, self indulgent, old fashioned, or even necessary? Or simply a celebration of new life, family linage, an excuse for delicious food, champagne and for a girlie catch up? While I dashed between both yes and no, my gorgeous sister persuaded me to indulge in a baby shower, and I am so delighted she did. We decided on a brunch & punch garden baby shower in the back garden at my sister’s home.

To begin with we needed to chose a date, design an invite, and get a guest list together.

EEEEkkk! It’s really happening!

We decided to make my sister the point of contact for RSVPs, questions and key organiser, with my mum at her side.

So we set about creating a day that would reflect prettiness!

Most of the decorations and platters were from my secret collector’s obsession with op shop and market vintage crockery. My sister and mum found some beautiful orange floral paper and that became the inspiration for the rest of the baby shower decoration.

While researching ‘baby showers’ on the net to my horror most involved games like ‘guess the pooie nappy’, dummy-sucking escapades and measuring how big the mother to be is… Which sounded like an absolute nightmare on a stick to me! I knew the last thing I wanted was to have any of those cliched, demeaning baby games. Harsh? Probably. And yes, I’ll admit we did end up playing a couple of random games. My sis got everyone to bring a baby photo of themselves and collected them in a big bowl, and we all picked out a random photo, and had to guess who the baby was. Everyone had a giggle at the cuties in the pictures. Another sweet little game was borne from a memory of when I was little, my grandmother always had little rose soaps about the size of a walnut in her bathroom. A jar filled with rose soaps became the prize for whoever guessed the correct number. Oh and one idea that I loved involved everyone filling out a card to give their predictions on all sorts of peculiar questions like what they thought baby would become, look like, etc. I loved reading through the cards after the baby shower, and playing a couple of games really got everyone into the spirit, especially as a lot of people had never met before.

No punch and brunch baby shower would be complete without my mum’s secret punch recipe. And yes, I shall disclose it, here and now!

Mum’s Punch Recipe

The difficulty with mum’s punch is there’s no true recipe, it’s all about tasting as you go. So I’ll give you the ingredients and you’ll have to be your own guide. But make sure you add the tea, that’s the important bit to making it a-mazing!

Cold English Breakfast Tea
Mineral Water
Pineapple Juice
Tropical Juice
Dry Ginger
Fresh Mint
Strawberries Chopped
Sliced Blood Orange
Ice

Delicious!!!

Wanting the whole day to be home made with a vintage charm, we simply had to make sausage rolls, quiche, cupcakes and dark chocolate dipped strawberries.

Plus we whipped up these incredible sweet delights for garden snacks from some recipes that inspired us too!

Lemon Slice

base:
250 grams finely crushed Marie biscuits
2 grated lemon rind
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 395g tin condensed milk
125g melted butter
lemon juice if mixture is too dry

icing:
2 cups icing sugar
lemon juice
1 small lemon rind
shredded coconut for sprinkling top

(as not to waste 1/2 a tin of condensed milk, you can be naughty and just double all the ingredients)

Combine – biscuits, lemon rind, coconut, condensed milk, and butter in a bowl
If – too dry add a little lemon juice or some more melted butter
Push – combined mixture firmly into a lined tin and allow to set in the fridge for 15 mins
Meanwhile – combine icing sugar, lemon rind and slowly add lemon juice
Add – more icing sugar if you accidentally over lemon juice it, the icing should be quite thick in texture
Using – a knife that’s been dipped in hot water ice the base with your icing sugar
Sprinkle – a little coconut on top
Allow – to cool for an hour or so
Slice – into bite size pieces when set

Caramel Slice

Base:
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
65 grams melted butter

Middle:
30 grams butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1/2 tin of 395 gram tin condensed milk

Top:
65 grams good quality chocolate
30 grams copha

(as not to waste 1/2 a tin of condensed milk just double the ingredients)

Preheat – oven 180 degrees celsius
Line – a round tin or a long loaf tin with baking paper
Combine – flour, sugar and coconut
Stir – in melted butter
Press – mixture into the tin
Pop – into oven for 15 mins

Meanwhile – moving onto the middle. Melt butter in pan.
Add – golden syrup and condensed milk, stirring continuously
Pour – over the cooked base
Pop – back into oven for 7,8,9 mins (bubbles should start to form a little on top)
Allow – to cool

Meanwhile – moving onto the top.
Fill – a saucepan with a little water and bring to boil
Pop – bowl on top of saucepan (make sure bowl does not touch water)
Place – roughly chopped chocolate and copha into bowl and stir till combined
Spread – over the caramel middle
Pop – into fridge to chill

To cut dip a large knife into hot water and then slowly cut through the slice. Wipe knife between cuts and continue to put into hot water.