Party food!

The youngest boy had his birthday party on the weekend. Those of you who are a bit au fait with Aus culture might see where this is heading…

I find it really hard to believe that fairy bread is only really a staple of children’s birthday parties in Australia and New Zealand, but if Wikipedia says it is, it must be so.

I pressed the 14 year old into action on the morning of the party, and he dutifully buttered and sprinkled a whole loaf of the best fluffy white supermarket bread. Now, real, proper fairy bread is made with hundreds-and-thousands rather than sprinkles, and they have to be rainbow. This year, I bought the natural colour version, which are slightly less vibrant, but also slightly less hyperactive (maybe), and it has to be white fluffy bread. I think I bought Tip-Top this time (“good on ya mum!”). It also has to be butter these days, so you’d better leave it out of the fridge overnight, or you’ll be in fluffy bread/butter hell. The bread must be cut into triangles, unless you’re doing something fancy with a biscuit cutter. For smaller children (under 5) you’d cut it in quarter slice triangles, bigger kids can handle half slices without causing too much rainbow mayhem.

Fairy bread is a favourite childhood party memory for me. I grew up in a multigrain bread margarine household. White bread was something other people ate, so now, of course, being a responsible adult, it’s pretty much the only bread I buy (see the Tip-Top link above, or this one for Wonder White) but I always buy the ‘fibre added’ ones because that makes such a difference. So now you know, if I’m talking about ‘fluffy white supermarket bread’ it’s probably one of these.

There’s something magical about the soft squishyness of the bread, spread thickly with butter and the crunch of the hundreds and thousands, that is strangely satisfying, but I think I found it a bit offputting as a child, a bit like getting sand in my mouth. But it’s not sickly sweet, there’s only an option for one layer of hundreds and thousands, and the rest all fall on to the floor as crunchy sticky rainbow of confetti as soon as you pick up a slice.

I’ll leave you with this Vice article, which, unsurprisingly, contains the C-word…

And of course, it suddenly occurs to me to wonder if fairy bread is on the List, but I bet it’s not.(and of course, it is, but it’s far enough in the future for at least one more birthday party between now and then, and more thoughts about fairy bread to percolate to the top)

Crit

I’m a mother of two boys. I work selling organic produce to gullible locals, and in my spare time I run as far as I can. Oh, and I live in Australia, married to a US citizen.