This Birthday Party Menu for a Dozen Adults is simple in that there aren’t many items, everything is casual … and yet everyone will come away satisfied. The cake, though, is not easy to make. I strongly suggest you make the cake layers the day before and keep them plastic-wrapped at room temperature. The filling and frosting will take several hours in and of itself. To balance this out, the rest of the dishes are easy to make. This menu has a subtle orange theme that you could leverage with décor ideas if you’re into that.

Orange Blossom Cocktail

(Green text will lead you to recipes throughout this post.)

In the mimosa family, but fancier … more of a cocktail. Will everyone want one? Will one guest want ten of them? (You know your friends better than I do.) I had on-hand two bottles of champagne and one of prosecco, prepared to make 1½ batches. I pre-mixed all ingredients except the champagne – this is nice, because it’s easy to deal with any leftover mix, and you can open the bottles as you go, which cuts down on leftover champagne. (Although leftover champagne keeps surprising well overnight, making for some nice Sunday morning day-drinking.) The recipe works out so that 1½ oz. of the mix goes into each champagne flute, but I found that a single ounce was quite nice (and stretches further).

Once you measure out the mix into the first flute, it’s easy to eyeball the others. Tell this to the first guest to arrive, whom you will designate the cocktail master/mistress.

ID markers for stemmed glasses is always a good idea at a party. I used some I got from Fred. By the way, did you know that the first cocktail party was thrown in St. Louis, MO, in 1917? The site is currently a Catholic Archbishop’s residence. I hope he carries on the tradition.

Blue Cheese, Pear, and Honey Tartines

When I posted this recipe a while back, I had said it would make good party food, and it did. Four batches was the perfect amount for a dozen people. Plan to start your work on these an hour before the start of the party. Get them to the point that they’re ready to have the cheese sprinkled on them, then wrap them loosely with cling wrap, and stack them on top of one another. Have the cheese in a bowl, ready for sprinkling. Once it’s time to make them, it’s a small matter to sprinkle on the cheese and pop them in the boiler. (You could prep them with the cheese on them, but them you have to handle them more carefully until they’ve been broiled.) You will probably have to broil them in two batches, but the second one (because the broiler will be hotter by then) goes very quickly. If you have a friend slice up and serve the first batch, you’ll have the second batch ready by the time they’re done.

Salad for a Dozen

Salad

Start with two heads of (red, or your favorite) leaf lettuce. Then, walk around the produce section of the grocery store, asking each item that you fancy, “If I were served a side salad, how many slices of you would I expect on my plate? And how many slices could I get out of you?” (Don’t say these things out loud, obviously.) That led me to buy 2 beefsteak tomatoes, one large orange bell pepper, a cucumber, a ruby red orange, and a small head of red cabbage. I had a few odds and ends at home to toss in with it, and I served it with a simple, Italian olive oil vinaigrette on the side. I wound up with salad to spare, so I was glad the dressing had been on the side. In my world, once a lettuce-type salad’s been dressed, I’m not going to eat it leftover.

I put out bowls for the salad. No one used them. They all used salad plates, on which they put the salad and the tartines.

Dishes Guests Offered to Bring

1. Chili Orange Noodles: one of my guests brought this dish. It was delicious. If I were doing this again, I would’ve planned to include this from the get-go. Again, dressing on the side. And let me tell you, if you have any of this dressing leftover, it is wild on a green salad!
2. Ice Cream: one guest brought two gallons. We ate some of it, but not much.

Dark Chocolate, Burnt Orange Birthday Cake

Tastes beautiful, looks gorgeous: a worthy birthday cake

Odds and Ends to Pick up While Shopping

1. Chinotto: 24 bottles. You could make do with half as many, but I don’t mind having this leftover. If you can’t find Chinotto, Aranciata Rossa and/or Clemintina will do nicely – but Chinotto is PERFECT with this cake.
2. Mixers: a bottle of tonic, a container of cranberry juice, OJ. Six of those cute, tiny cans of Coke and six more of 7-Up. You can buy 2-liters more cheaply (probably), but then you’re forced to drink the leftover all at once. Two or more bottles of sparkling water. We used the water, but very little of the other stuff. Everyone was pretty into the champagne cocktails.
3. A party-sized bag of chips and another of nacho-cheese Bugles. Why not?
4. Lemon (1), limes (2) – in case you suddenly find yourself wanting them
5. Ice: one small bag. I kept the sodas on ice to save on fridge space. Plus, bagged ice is amahzing.
6. Cocktail napkins: even if you have some in your cupboard, it’s always good to have extra.
7. Milk for lattes (which will go beautifully with the cake). Of course you have an espresso maker with a built in burr grinder and steaming wand. I know you do. How could you throw parties without one? Or get up in the morning, for that matter?

Birthday Party Menu for a Dozen Adults

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. In preparing this post, I relied heavily on The Guardian. Thank you, Textalyzer.

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