Pink/Blue/Surprise: Baby Shower Recipe Inspo

Babies are born every day in the UK (around 2,200, in fact), but the birth rate traditionally soars in September, which is officially the most popular birthday month, according to the Office for National Statistics.

September just so happens to fall nine months after those boozy Christmas nights out, New Year’s Eve celebrations, and cosy nights in spent cuddled up before heading to bed early for ‘warmth’. Yes, we know what you did last winter…

September 26th is the most popular birthday of all in Britain, and early October birthdays are very common too, which suggests a whole lot of baby showers need to be taking place earlier on in the month in anticipation of little ones’ arrivals.

And in the age of Instagram, baby showers are a big thing. Perfectly iced cupcakes, themed treats, silly games, cute balloons, and even live-streamed gender reveals have all become part and parcel of these special days.

So, how can you make sure your baby shower food stands up to the mark? By using these recipes as inspiration, that’s how.

If you don’t know whether it’s Team Pink or Team Blue, then serving up fare themed around both colours makes for an extremely pretty-looking baby shower. And you can bend the rainbow slightly too; cranberries might technically be red, but once cooked they can turn pink, and teamed with blue cheese they can create a very tasty scone.

Is it sweet? Is it savoury? Or somewhere inbetween? What we do know is the sweet fruit goes excellently with the strong stilton, and we thank Coriander Cooks for the recipe idea. Spread with butter for a beautiful start to your afternoon tea.

Few things scream baby shower quite like pastel-coloured iced cupcakes, and sweet lemon iced cakes are perfect if you’re going for a gender-neutral celebration.

But if you do know the sex, these pink velvet cupcakes from I Heart Naptime and these blue velvet cupcakes from Fold in the Flour are simply too adorable to pass up. With beautifully coloured sponge, buttercream icing and sprinkles, these bakes encompass everything baby showers are about.

Okay, so we’re bending the rainbow again slightly here with pink/red, but we reckon you could easily repurpose these Fourth of July-themed fruit skewers from My Fussy Eater into a tasty baby shower snack.

Featuring raspberries, blueberries and white marshmallows, these colourful kebabs are juicy and sweet, and the suggested chocolate orange dipping sauce adds another fruity twist, cranking everything up a notch.

Angel cake may traditionally be pink, white and yellow, but adding in a few drops of blue food colouring too to cover all baby shower bases would make a fun addition to your tea table.

Follow Baking With Granny’s recipe, but put your food colouring in the mix for the layer that’s usually white, for a stunning pastel finish. Try not to be too heavy-handed with the food colouring; you want pale and classy, not psychedelic and sickening.

Vanilla is of course another failsafe flavour for a gender-neutral baby shower, and cake pops look oh-so Instagrammable and they’re just the right size for a tasty mouthful in between all that gossip and guess the weight of the baby.

Heidi’s Home Cooking has a lovely easy-to-follow recipe for vanilla cake pops with a cream cheese icing. Roll them in sprinkles – see if you can find some sweet bird or star shapes for a lovely baby shower twist – for a little extra wow factor.

Mocktails complete with margarita-style glasses and cocktail umbrellas can make baby shower beverages seem a little more grown-up and elegant for those who aren’t drinking.

Pink lemonade would be lovely if you know it’s a girl, but if it’s a surprise, somewhere in the middle of pink and blue (i.e. purple) would be a good hue to go with, like in this recipe for homemade blueberry lemonade from Annie’s Noms.

Stick to the recipe’s serving suggestions of mason jars and fresh mint leaves for the perfect aesthetic finish. These beauties are so good no one will miss the alcohol. But there’s still no harm in counting down to when you can all enjoy a gin together again.