Real Hip Hooray: Milk and Cookies

Yesterday, our little Zoe celebrated her second birthday with the menu of her wildest, two-year-old dreams - Milk and Cookies. For breakfast. For lunch. For afternoon tea. For dinner. And, ummm, for breakfast again this morning!!

Against a backdrop of chocolate-chip inspired polka dots and shades of burnt butter, chocolate, caramel and vanilla, I created this little spread of home-baked goodness . . . .

I so adore polka dots - a classic party companion which can be both youthful and playful or extremely elegant. I simply can't get enough of them and gave this party a good sprinkling. When creating the invitations, I had been inspired by this gorgeous party backdrop, and imagined translating it indoors using our palette of chocolatey warmth.

Double choc-chip cookies, Polka Dots and Snickerdoodles filled jars just made for digging in. Cookie pops (oreos dipped in white chocolate) kept the kids smiling and milk bottles and marshmallows seemed the perfect lolly additions to the buffet.

Somewhere in my `I've seen that somewhere' files catalogued in the right side of my brain was the perfect cake. I was delighted when a quick dig through my magazine collection revealed a `cookies `n' cream' cake, gracing the cover of the inimitable Donna Hay Kids Magazine (5th Annual Edition, 2008). Layer upon layer of crisp-on-the-outside, gooey-in-the-middle giant choc-chip cookies and cold, sweet drippy ice-cream (Cookies `n Cream' of course!). PERFECT, right?

And if you've ever sipped your hot tea through a Tim Tam biscuit - if not, you must! - then you'll know how much fun the kids had with their petite bottles of milk and edible stripey straws. What started out as a dilemma about not having a shade of stripey paper straw to match the colour palette (gasp!) resolved in a creative moment that sneaked up on me (in the aisles of Big W!) and became a fun and fitting `cookie' detail.

We served steaming cups of hot chocolate and marshmallows and a shot or two of Kahlua to spice up the grown-up milk (I felt 18 again!). The kids toted home tins filled with milk bottles - plain and chocolate-covered, - jersey caramels, marshmallows and Twix; and grown-up guests collected their own petite cookie jar filled with Polka Dot cookies.

Baby, it was cold outside, but hearts and bellies were warm on the inside.

Happy Birthday to our very own crazy, cuddly, charismatic Cookie monster. Zoe escapes the camera lens at every turn, so this is the one and only birthday shot I managed on the day - devouring the first of four (!) Cookie pops. Like I told you, dream dinner.

Be sure to drop in again tomorrow - we have a little more polka-dot cookie goodness to share with you.