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Fungi Fiesta Mushroom Tea -19yr- Log Cake

February 2012

Gloria in Paso Robles, CA, USA

Honorable Mention

I am a weird kid and for my 19th birthday threw myself a Mushroom party. I had just gotten done with a biology project in a community college class where I had been doing a project on fungi. Hence the interest in mushrooms.  

Invite: I drew a picture in marker of a multi-colored fairly psychedelic-esque mushroom. And wrote above in a curly script: Your Invited to my Fungi Fiesta and my Mushroom Tea Party. I went on to inform guests about the events to expect (food, fun, etc). 

Decorations: The toadstool tea party was to take place at a local park in our down town. I put down some nice spring colored table cloths on the picnic tables (my birthday is in may) and set out the tea sets. I have a set of very dainty little butterfly teacups that were utilized. I had a bouquet of mushrooms on the table (mushroom instructions described with costume). 

Costumes: For this splendid even I wore a pair of plants that look sporedifirous! They were in green with a twisting curling paisley pattern on them and at least in my mind embodied the odd and exotic intriguing quality of mushrooms. I also wore a cape.

The most elaborate part of my costume was a head wreath made with faux ivy wrapped on wire and topped with a ring of toadstools. The toadstools I made myself from salt clay and stuck a wire in their base before baking them (so as to be able to attach them to the crown).

Afterward I painted each individually in acrylic paints in all sorts of colors. Some your traditional deadly white cap red dot (and vic a versa) kind others swirly capped and so on. I used some metallic paint and glitter to give them extra flair.  

Snacks: For food I made cucumber sandwiches, ants on a log (celery slices with peanut butter and raisins) and a fruit salad with melon balls and strawberries. A friend I had talked to ahead of time brought stuffed mushrooms which were incredible.

To occupy our sweet tooths as we sipped tea I set out several packages of Choco Shrooms. Some lovely little Japanese candy that had a cookie stem and a chocolate mushroom cap. They can be purchased at world market and were quite a fitting edition. 

Games: We played Mushroom, Mushroom, Toadstool! As a rendition on duck, duck, goose. Since it was the park I brought my bocce set and my guests and I had a fine time playing several rounds of bocce.  

Cake: For cake I made a log cake (in the yule jelly roll fashion) with chocolate frosting scratched with a fork to look like swirly bark. It had been my intention to decorate this with meringue mushrooms but I never got around to it. I do hope if someone does follow in my fungi footsteps and host a similar party they include the meringue mushrooms which would be a dandy edition to the cake.  

Favors: As guests were leaving I let them take a mushroom from the bouquet on the table. I used the leftover toadstools from my birthday crown (described in costumes) to use a center piece and finally as favors. I think all the guests were very happy with theirs and they enjoyed picking out their favorite and I have since seen these fungi popping up in friends rooms or twisted around the end of a pencil.

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