Hosting a Baby Shower: Ideas for Menus, Decor, and More!
Today I’m sharing all the details of my sister’s baby shower, including our menu, recipes, decorations, and so much more!
Baby Shower
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to host a baby shower for my little sister, Kenzie. She’ll be having her first baby in less than a month and we are all so excited for baby boy to join the family!
Kenzie and my mom both live in Southern California, but we decided to host the baby shower here in Utah because it’s a central location to so many friends and family members. Kenz and I are about 10 years apart. I moved out when she was eight and missed out on a lot of the sister moments back then. Being able to host her baby shower truly meant the world to me.
With lots of helping hands, we were able to host a baby shower I just loved and hope Kenzie did too! I’m sharing all the details, including recipes, below.
The Menu
One of my favorite things to plan, for any event, is the menu! Because let’s be honest, food is life!
My mom and I decided to go with a brunch theme and simply picked some of our favorite foods for an easy-to-prep baby shower spread.
- Quiche
- Salad
- Fresh fruit
- Orange rolls
- Creme Brulee Cake
The quiche, salad and cake were all from scratch. We ended up buying frozen orange rolls from Lion House Bakery (local to Utah), but you can find the recipe to make these rolls from scratch HERE. To complement the food, we added a large spread of fresh fruit.
Honestly, nothing on this menu is overly complicated. In fact, the cake and the quiche can be made ahead of time. I have a whole post about making cake in advance. Read all about my tips for how to freeze and store your cakes HERE.
The quiche can also be made ahead of time. You can bake the entire thing a day early or make the crust and filling separately and then put together and bake day of. I think anything you can do to lighten your load the day of any event is one of the smartest things you could do.
Below are my mom’s recipes for the Cheese and Ham Quiche and Citrus Salad, along with the link for my Creme Brulee Cake.
Quiche
My mom’s quiche recipe is incredibly simple and super delicious. We made two 9-inch, deep-dish quiches, and both were completely gone by the end of the party.
There’s a lot you can do to play around with this recipe. We used mild cheddar and swiss cheese in the filling, but that’s an element you can change up based on your favorite cheese flavors. We also used diced ham, but bacon, turkey sausage or pancetta would be awesome alternatives. You could even throw in some fresh veggies!
The recipe below is for a 9-inch, regular pie pan. You’ll see the changes my mom made for the deep dish version at the end.
Ingredients
- 9″ pie crust (your favorite homemade recipe or store-bought)
- 2 cups finely shredded cheese (my mom used 1 cup milk cheddar and 1 cup swiss)
- 1 cup diced ham or crumbled bacon (my mom used ham)
- 4 eggs
- ½ cup plain greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1 Tbsp. cornstarch or flour
- Dash of salt and pepper
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, combine the eggs, yogurt or sour cream, and mix well.
- Add the diced ham or bacon and the cheese. Stir gently with a spatula.
- Sprinkle in your salt and pepper.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust.
- Cover the pie crust edges with foil to protect from over-browning.
- Bake the quiche for 40 minutes or until the center no longer jiggles.
- Cool before serving.
- For a deep dish quiche: double the filling recipe and use a deep dish pie crust. You’ll bake for closer to 50 to 60 minutes.
Citrus Salad
The salad recipe is also a Diana special. She’s been using this dressing recipe a lot lately and was dying for us to try it. And oh my goodness, you guys! It’s delicious! I have a feeling we’ll all be grabbing for this recipe all summer long.
The key to this salad is the dressing. My mom uses an orange champagne vinegar for the dressing, but if you can’t find that flavor vinegar, she also gives us a substitute (see below).
Citrus Dressing
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup Trader Joe’s Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar (or 1 Tbsp. regular champagne vinegar and 3 Tbsp. orange juice)
- 1-2 tsp. honey
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
- Mix in shaker
To fill the salad, my mom used butter lettuce, grapefruits, blackberries and slivered almonds. This is another area you can mix things up. I’d just suggest including at least one citrus fruit to go with the dressing.
Creme Brûlée Cake
No surprise here – cake was our main dessert! After making my Creme Brulee Cake in January, I knew this would be the perfect cake for Kenzie’s baby shower. The only change I made was making an additional half batch and creating a second tier.
A two layer, 6-inch cake and a three layer, 8-inch cake served about 40 people. Remember, when you’re hosting a party with a full spread of food, your slices of cake do not need to be big. I actually got 14 slices from the smaller tier!
Decorations
For decorations, I decided to outsource. I knew my week leading up to the baby shower would be busy and I also know myself: I love all the fun decorations like balloon arches and streamers, but I don’t love making it all. Ha! Anyone else feel that way?
I heard about Kenzie’s Events from a friend and reached out about some help with a photo wall balloon arch and some balloons near the food table.
I love that Kenzie came with balloons already made and just had to assemble when she arrived.
We also used some wall fans and paper goods from my friends at My Mind’s Eye. I’m in love with the fringe on the napkins!
Soda Bar
Another element of the baby shower I decided to outsource were the drinks! I met darling Lexi from The Soda Bar at one of my cake classes and just knew we needed her at the shower. We hired Lexi to provide mixed sodas and sugar cookies. I kept this as a surprise for Kenzie and it was such a hit. Lexi’s prices were totally reasonable and it just made for a little something extra.
You can book The Soda Bar through their Instagram account: The Soda Bar Utah.
A little something for everyone too!
Flowers
For flower arrangements, my dear Aunt Sue offered to gift us these beautiful arrangements. Sue is my dad’s twin sister and has her own floral design company here in Utah, Simply Beautiful Blooms.
We used the large arrangement as the centerpiece to the food table and then small blooms scattered on my dining table.
My Favorite Desserts to Bring to a Party
You are my go-to cake lady! I have literally made about 25 different cake recipes over the last year and each one is just as good as the other. I typed baby shower in your search bar and was taken to this post.
I’ll be making your creme brulee cake for a baby shower this weekend and would like it to be two-tiered as you’ve done here. This will be my first time making a tiered cake so I have a couple of questions. 1.) Should I only do the custard in the top tier, or will it be ok to do it in the bottom cake too (strength-wise)? 2.) Do you use support rods for the second tier? Thank you!
Yea because of the crust you can’t really put dowels in the bottom tier so I would leave that cake for the top tier.
Had a question about the ham and cheese quiche recipe. It says you need 1 Tbs of cornstarch or flour but doesn’t say in the instructions where to use it.
Thanks
With the eggs