Ideas For A Gluten-free Tea Party

[dandelionmom]

Julia wants a tea party for her fourth birthday! I want the whole thing to be gluten-free without costing an arm and a leg and without being a ton of work (it is the week before Christmas!) and it needs to be magical, of course! Can this be done? I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

[wowzer]

You could bake cookies or muffins gluten free. I did go to the Dairy Queen and ordered a specially made ice cream cake. If you look on their website they have a good list of gluten free sundaes and blizzards. We get them at work and when I looked at it, the only thing that I could see with gluten in it were the crushed cookies in the center. I asked them to make one using pecans instead of the cookies for me. They do have some fancy ones with characters, but I believe it used rice paper and don't know if that would be gluten free. I went simple and had them write Happy Birthday. You could maybe do fruit and yogurt dip. Apples and caramel dip. If you are up to the mess, you could make sugar cookies and let them frost their own. Have fun with it. A tea party should be fun. Let us know how it turns out.

[loco-ladi]

Not a parent here but I am a former 4 year old girl (according to my mother but my dad says I was always a tomboy)

Not sure if there are any other issues besides gluten so my ideas may be trash

What about "teacakes" could be gluten free cupcakes with frosting

and the "tea" could be either iced tea or maybe some type of koolaid type drink, or since its close to christmas hot chocolate might be pretty nice also......

hot chocolate with marshmallows floating on the top... MMMMmmmmmmm just made myself hungry.... or thirsty as the case may be, gotta go get out my "list" and go find hot chocolate!

[amybeth]

There is a relatively easy chocolate fondue type dip (I think I found it on allrecipes.com). It calls for packaged chocolate frosting and sour cream. It's great dipped with fruits, glutino pretzels, marshmallows (and really what ISN"T good dipped in chocolate).

Finger food is GREAT for tea parties.

You could also do veggies pieces on toothpicks and a yummy dip......

Or finger sandwiches using Blue Diamond Nut Thins and hummus, or cheese and pepperoni, or peanut butter and jelly -- Since the crackers are smaller they could be "fancy" for a tea party.

There's also another fruit dip (strawberry cream cheese, marshmallow fluff and coolwhip mixed together) that's great with apples.....

For dessert you could go with "Make your own ice cream sundae" and only offer naturally gluten-free toppings (Magic Shell, fruit, jam, nuts, M&Ms, etc.)

Have fun!

[taylor-]

I had a tea party birthday when i turned 5!! haha..

we all wore our sunday dresses and had a makeover type thing.

For an activity we had different stations: nail painting, decorating mirrors/picture frames, glamour shots, and making hair scrunchies (the big poofy ones made out of scraps of material, very 90s right?..haha)

my best friends mom, my grandma, as well as my mom, were running the "booths". One painted our nails, one took pictures, and one did the arts and crafts stuff.

Painted nails: this was just at a little pinic table, we had like 2 different colors and a little fan thing to dry them, the girls got to pick one color, a mom would paint them, and then they would sit under the fan while another girl got hers painted.

Decorating mirrors/picture frames: my mom bought some cheap little mirrors, cardboard picture frames, glitter and jewels and just let us go crazy.

"Glamour shots": with a polaroid camera she took our picture in a nice spot in our back yard and while we were eating and opening presents she put them in the picture frames for the goody bags.

My mom says we had all the little teacups and stuff, but since none of us really drank tea we had sprite instead. She had a lazy susan set up with nuts, m&ms, and the little wedding mints. And instead of cake we had gluten-free minature cupcakes that she made. She always planned our birthday party's from like 2-4 so that she didn't have to worry lunch or dinner..so she just had snacks for us to munch on the whole time. she also makes this really good fruit dip with marshmellow fluff and cream cheese that is amazing! she had that with fruit and toothpicks..soo good.

hope that helps some!

ps. my mom swears this was the best birthday party i ever had..haha, i hope yours it just as awesome!

[shan]

You could put marshmallows on a stick and dip it into chocolate and then in to sprinkles, nuts, choc chips... Yummmmmmm

[melrobsings]

I'm not a mom BUUUUUT I worked as characters at birthday parties, like Alice in Wonderland, Barbie, Ariel...you get the idea, you name the party, i have done it! My FAV parties were the tea parties! There is SO MUCH you can do and you can make it so that the center of the party isn't the food. I have "hosted" all kinds of tea parties and here are a few ideas.

First off...4year olds and fondue? BUST OUT THE TARP MOM AND WRAP THOSE KIDS IN CELLOPHANE SO THEY DON'T GET DIRTY!

Make Hats. You can find straw hats (sun hats) at the craft store for cheap, or check your dollar store. Grab glue, glitter and some flowers, or make flowers out of colored tissue paper and some ribbon. Cheap, easy, FUN and then the girls wear them to the tea party and you only have to have hershey kisses sitting out and tea or koolaid. Oh and stickers, the girls LOVED stickers on the hats!

You can have a few mom friends help you out and put makeup on the girls, what 4 year old doesn't LOVE make up? You can get a make up kit that's hypo allerginic or whatever at Toys R Us and instead of lipstick do gloss (gloss is more gluten-free friendly) (check with other moms first, i have delt with some pissed off mommies!) (nail polish is a nightmare).

With either of these 2 things you can put on a fashion show before or after the tea party.

I will rack my brain more today but I hope this helps. This way you are having a tea party but it isn't focused on the food but how the girls LOOK at the party. And if you can pay a neighbor girl to put on a Alice in Wonderlland costume and help with the hats and make up all the better!

Have a blast!!!!

[missy'smom]

Mini anything is great. How about mini tarts/pies. Cut out the crust with a circle cuter and place in a muffin tin. Add fruit pie or pumpkin or other filling and bake. Spray on some whipped cream just before serving. Or bake crusts and then fill with custard or pudding, fresh fruits and glaze with jam.

Cut out sandwiches with cookie cutters.

I haven't made biscuits or scones gluten-free yet but used to cut with a small circle or other simple shape cutters too.

Any firm gelatin can be cut in shapes too.

[Sarah8793]

We did a tea party for our 5 year old. I made cupcakes (gluten free) in the shape of flowers (wilton flower cupcake mold), frosted them and added pretty sprinkles. I served choc. dipped strawberries, potato chips, pretzels (gluten free), and carrot sticks. I made real tea (candy apple) and added sugar, but noone wanted it, so I served sprite instead.