It's (going to be) a Girl!

So the biggest event for me this past weekend was TORC's baby shower. She and her husband are expecting a baby girl this coming 4th of July (give or take a few weeks). The theme was circus, but we played around loosely with the theme in terms of decor (zebra and giraffe print napkins). However, in terms of desserts, once again, the talented Jenny of Foray into Food has outdone herself yet again with these adorable Circus themed cupcakes (For a bigger and better photo, check out her flickr page here!)!

TORC chose this flavor: Chocolate mud cakes with marscapone cream filling and coffee ganache with fondant decorations.  Here's the other box. I ordered two dozen of these for the party...Aren't they cute?!

The dessert table - storebought melon and strawberry cakes on the two-tiered display, plus a vase full of assorted candies (milk chocolate, strawberry and White Rabbit), the circus cupcakes, and on the three-tiered display, the cookie favors, Ube with coconut cupcakes (also storebought), and pecan tarts (from Filipino Desserts Plus). The pails were from Target ($1 bin!)

Here's a closer look at the cupcakes on the display stand...

Her sis had her friend make a cake for the party - it was a circus big top with animals (giraffe, elephant and clown). This was the back view. The cake was peaches and cream flavor and it was delicious!

I was anal and insisted that the food be served in (nearly) all white serving ware with metal (not plastic) serving utensils. The only plastic item on there was the bowl holding the fried rice because we didn't have a large serving dish to use.

The table laden with good eats. D bought that sash for TORC. Points to her for actually wearing it.

In addition to the mixed green salad with toppings (dried sweetened cranberries, sliced almonds, feta cheese and balsamic dressing) plus mac salad (made by my mom), we had a few Filipino/Chinese party food classics such as this bowl of fried rice from Mandarin...

Lumpia made by TORC's dad - Oh my God, I'm so glad my mom doesn't read my blog because what I'm about to write is grounds for being disowned, but I thought this was one of the best lumpias I've ever had, even better than my mom's! (Gasp!) The size was just right. They were fried perfectly and the filling was quite different for me - ground beef with shredded carrots and garbanzos! I've never had garbanzos in lumpia before (only in Sariwang Lumpia aka "fresh lumpia")! So damn good!

The pancit was also courtesy of TORC's mom in which she used two kinds of noodles and not the kind I expected either. Bert's mom used Canton and Bihon. So does my mom when she makes this type of pancit. There are so many variations out there, it's hard to keep track but this was really "sarap sarap" (delicious)! The noodles used were Chuka Soba (a Japanese wheat noodle, the thicker one) and Sotanghon (clear bean thread noodles). The vegetables were shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and celery along with sliced fish cake and whole shrimps for the protein. My mom cubes her fish cake. TORC's mom sliced hers into thin strips.

Of course, it ain't no partay unless you have these - the Chinese salt and pepper wings (also from Mandarin)! The crunchy coating was intensely flavored with green onions, tons of minced and fried garlic and hot crushed pepper seeds. These are so addicting. You can't just have one. Good luck trying to resist.

The Rosemary Chicken was a welcome addition to the table, made by TORC's brother, the Drummer. These looked and smelled delicious!

TORC's dad (Uncle) also made a fruit salad (strawberries, canteloupe, and watermelon). I love how he lined the bowl with lettuce. Very nice. Like my dad, a former Navy cook, they know how to make food look good!

I made use of my trifle bowl and dumped in an assortment of cut up fruits for another type of fruit salad. Again, I used a mix of canned and fresh. For the canned, I used jackfruit which I cut into strips, mandarin orange segments, Maraschino cherries (for color), pineapple chunks and lychees. Although this is not a fruit, it did come from a can, coco jel cubes (which TC and KD's daughter enjoyed). The fresh fruits included dragon fruit (the white cubes with black seeds), kiwis, strawberries, and blueberries.

TORC's husband brought  some more desserts from National City - two kinds of sticky rice (brown and purple, which was ube flavored) topped with brown sugar and coconut.

The cake table - you can see a tray of Turon (fried banana fritters with jackfruit), the rice cakes and even more rice cakes (purple rice, puto, and kalamay, a type of multicolored layered glutinous rice cake).

And if we didn't have more sweets, one of the guests brought these pretzel sticks with chocolate designs (footprints, "Baby" in blocks)...

Another guest brought red velvet cupcakes with cute baby toppers. I liked the "pea in a pod" one!

I'd never seen one of these before - this is a diaper "cake" tower. No, not a real cake but diapers forming the shape of a layered cake. Those of us that were mothers joked that these diapers would only be enough for three or four days! When TC was born, I had no idea how often babies poo'd! I was changing diapers constantly!

The baby games were also fun because I was TORC's sister order people around in her "more than persuasive/coercive manner". You think I'm a bossy bitch? Well, she makes me look like Mother Teresa! And I say that in a good way.

There was a baby bottle apple juice chug orchestrated by TORC's sis (that was so hilarious!), a baby word scramble (pretty easy since I lifted it from a baby games page, why reinvent the wheel, right?), "A Star is Born" (the "challenging" match the baby name to the celebrity parent, see that post here) and lastly, "Guess the Kid", in which baby pictures of the guests were taped onto a board and we had to guess who was who. You could tell which pictures were from the 70's!

In addition to the circus animal cookie favors, we also had Barnum's Animal cookies in the classic red box (above ) and in limited edition, Lilly Pulitzer designed boxes.

The party went quite well and there was a lot of leftover food and desserts which people made "to go" plates. Looking forward to seeing the baby next month!