When I was little, I recall my mom having a plastic
container – pumpkin orange or was it avocado green? filled with
Betty Crocker Recipe cards – Not that my mom ever used th
em – I think it was one of those wedding presents that gets put in
the closet of no return. Any way I loved them – the food was often
bizarre the props kitschy – and when I was playing stuffed animals
– a cuddlier version of dolls, I would pretend the cards were meals
at a fancy restaurant and deal my pals a treat. Fishing them out
of storage, I found my favorite section was the colorful children’s
parties and decided for a hoot to match up a recipe with some
of the characters from the 80’s teen series. There’s also
some Mcalls recipe cards mixed in – they were a ripoff off
the Betty Crocker cards.
1. Sparkling Grape Soda’s – Sweet Valley Twins – It’s the
Unicorn’s first boy / girl party and purple is the ‘it’ color and
even Bruce Patman has agreed to grace them with his
magnificent Presence. ( Due to the time bending of SVH
and sister- series SVT, though they appear to be
twelve in 1986, it’s more accurate that they are twelve in 1979 )
– hence Bruce’s psychedelic threads – but don’t feel sorry for him
– he was the dreamiest , grooviest guy there. He even dug Janet’s
– err- Jessica’s – ( she really thought them up but Janet took the
credit ) Sparkling purple sodas. Jessica was so furious with Janet
that she spiked her glorious leader’s soda with prune juice and
Janet was mysteriously indisposed for the rest of the historic
party. Jessica managed to disco the day away with Bruce Patman
who knew all the latest steps to Johnny Bucks newest album –
Feel the Funk!
2. Paintbrush cookies -BSC – At Claudia’s fifth birthday party Kristy ,
Mary Anne and especially Claudia’s mom took notice of Claudia’s
artistic mania when Claudia couldn’t stop from digging out her
tempera paints and painting the guests cookies – Mary Anne
was too polite as usual and forced herself to gobble down three before
getting a severe stomach ache while Kristy used to the garbage
they severed in the cafeteria , ate six of them and even asked
for the recipe. Alan Gray , who, though a creep is somehow
always invited to parties, attempted to get his mother to sue for food
poisoning – the case fell through after he was caught eating
the chicken leg from his Play doh Make- a- meal set. And
Pete Black got his food creations start by dancing his t rex cookie
into his glass of milk which he claimed was the La Brea Tar pits
and he couldn’t fish it out.
3. Whistles in frozen desserts – BSC – Kristy’s anal repulsive,
bossiness shines through when her mother passes out the
party favors at her sixth birthday party – annoyingly harsh
whistles , that mysteriously enough only hers manages to
toot aloud ( Kristy it seems has plugged up the others with the
leftover gooey, chocolate ingredients of the mystery fudge
dish.) Smug smile in place – whistle blasts frequent – Kristy
wields her guests into an endless game of Kristy says but
when Claudia can’t take any more Kristy caves
starting another game – what else but- follow the leader.
4. African safari party cake – BSC –
The cake that almost unhinged Jessi when she first came to
Stoneybrook. Nobody could tell her it wasn’t a racist slur ,
even though the icing spelled out Karen who was dressed
as a lion tamer for her sixth birthday , and the other kids who
were disguised as animals or poachers , even though Jessi showed
up at Kristy’s on the wrong day for her and Mallory’s Welcome
to the Club party and Jessi stiffly informed everyone
she wasn’t African , she had never been to Africa and
she really didn’t appreciate the racist jube-jubes on the cake
before huffily slamming out the front door. Well on a brighter
note none of the kids wanted to eat a racist cake , leaving
the big scrumptious thing for Claudia to devour in one sitting.
( Who happened to be present mainly so that she could rehash
it in future books on the first few description pages – starting
with Jessi can find racism in even a birthday cake! – But
we love her anyway. )
5. Tell me a story – BSC –
Mallory is tired of constantly being thought of as a nerd ,
what is she doing wrong? Didn’t she get her ears pierced, just like
Stacey and Claudia and the big girls? – I mean they’re not triple
pierced but still. Didn’t she manage to pick up some cool items
like push down socks , and really fresh jeans ? ( though she
would love to sue the t.v. executives for constantly putting
nerdy wardrobes on her character – jeepers in one she looked like
Buster Keaton! Totally uncool ) Since she had just caught Claudia
wearing a totally rad pair of chicken barrettes she was positive
Chickens were totally in , same goes with nursey rhymes – last
week on her spying – ahem- what she calls zeroing in on the cool
radar – she caught Stacey buying a mother goose book – okay, Mal
was so dazzled by Stacey’s awesome outfit, which featured jelly shoes
over to die for socks ,with little bitty bunnies munching carrots – it
had to be a sign – she forgot it was probably for the Kid Kits and,
frazzled Mallory, compiled a birthday party swirling with ‘in’ items like
a chicken cake featuring spearmint stick legs and tiny picture books
that doubled as jumbo earrings – the Baby Sitter’s club was rather
unsympathetic – while Stacey and Claudia practically died from the
uncoolness of it , Kristy thought Mallory had lost it – maybe she was
sick and ought to lie down. Dawn freaked out over the sugar
abundance of jellied fruit slices while Alan Gray , Who invited him again?
took flight with a pinwheel the most exciting
event of an otherwise uneventful day.
6. Paper bag party with pink popcorn balls – SVH-
Liz has had it with everyone making fun of her for her brand new
perm! In fact she wishes it would grow out, like in the next few
books, rather than endure this torment – first the insinuations
that she is not daring didn’t she hang-ten? and now this party
with the ridiculous center piece – Liz just knows the pink popcorn
balls are meant to mean her hair, she can see Jessica snickering over
there with Lila and it was after all Jessica’s centerpiece. Well Liz knew
what that bag meant she’d heard it often enough – “can’t you wear
a bag over your head till that grows out , I don’t want anyone to
think we’re related.” And then Jessica saunters over wearing Liz’s brand
new expensive from Bebe’s dress and says oh you can keep the
centerpiece if you want to Liz with a teasing smile. That does it –
Liz takes a firecracker ,from Lila’s elaborate set up in the back yard
( 250 fireworks to celebrate Lila’s A on a test that she’d only
managed cheating via walkie talkie ) and sticks it in the cute
centerpiece bag and lights it up ( but the real event was not
that poor Todd got shot in the butt with the firework and Liz
agonized through two books over whether to tell him, and
when she did, he, fickle boy dated gorgeous, nubile new girl
Gretchen, that nobody ever heard of, and when he came to
his senses and sauntered back to grateful Liz,nobody ever
heard from again, was, what was Liz doing
with a lighter?! )
7. Ho-Ho Chocolate Pudding – Cranberry Cousins – It’s Kathy’s
turn to make a dessert for the new guests at the Cranberry
Inn and she doesn’t really have time – instead of hauling out all
the blenders and cook books she dumps pudding over ho-ho’s voila
, dessert! Of course to keep things running smoothly she sneaks
out her Deena voo-doo doll , just in case , sneaky old Deena wants
to reveal her secret. But Deena seeing the too cute doll sappily
thinks , Kathy has turned over a new leaf – how touching and
creates a Kathy doll for Kathy. As both dolls sit side by side
on their shared dresser a curious incident occurs as the girls sit down
with the guests for dinner. Little Johnny having found the dolls –
first decided to rip their tops off. Which created a strange amount
of screaming from the dining room.
8. Patriotic birthday party -SVH – Rick Anderson’s fifth birthday
turned a little eerie when he pooh-pooh his mother’s plans
of a wimpy Big Bird cake and insisted on real he-man
stuff – like these axes in logs. Elizabeth knew that Rick was
always going to be too much for her , ( politely put, in reality she
thought he was a real poo-poo head ) but Jessica in her
Alice headband was thrilled – axes in cupcakes showed the
first true signs of a demented rebel ( who loved corny
playing with fire metaphors as pickups ) – She just knew
he’d grow up to be a put-out-or-get-out, Trans Am driving ,
hot-stuff , dirt bag. She sighed in true pleasure and flirted
outrageously. Or as outrageously as a five year old could , offering
him a glimpse into her Mary Janes and giggling, look hard! do you
see the frills?
9. Flower Pot Sundaes – Camp Sunnyside Friends – Sarah Fine
is tired of crafts ( she is not crafty ) , and tired of sports
( she’s not sporty ) , ( what she’s doing at camp is an
entirely other story) and she decides to take a stand ,
nobody is going to force her to do any boring crafts like
paint your own sneakers ( couldn’t they come up with
something really exciting like lanyards? ) Instead Sarah raids
her arsenal of snacks, swipes her cabin mates ice cream coupons
and voila makes Flower pot sundaes to dazzle the residents slaving
over puff paint in the Arts n’ crafts cabin – however before she can
unveil her masterpieces she is distracted by a varied plot maneuver
to get her away from her treats ( from helping a limping caterpillar
who may have broken legs ) to changing out of a wet bathing suit
( that she was never in , in the first place ) no matter – the
terrible Maura Kingsley takes advantage to replace the ice cream
with dirt – so that the first gloppy mouthful ensures that Sarah
will never live this humiliation down until of course Katie can plot
a like revenge to the girls from Cabin Nine. Something about fire
breathing hair dryers?
10. Be a clown party & Cupcake Faces – The Fabulous Five –
The Fabulous Five have sent out handmade invitations for their
totally excellent party on the weekend celebrating Wacko’s latest
football win. Yikes! those rats, The Fantastic Four have
done the same thing. What are they going to do? Katie thinks
her recipe will save the day – everyone will want to try my
cupcakes wait till you see them – yes , Melanie says dreamily
they’re too cute. But on the night of the big party Christie is
quick to notice Alexis hasn’t arrived , that traitor Beth growls,
and vows to confront her. But Alexis shows up late and sheepish –
she did go to the Fantastic Four’s party, and tells the girls ,
Laura is serving cupcakes too only hers has ice cream and
little hats , their faces are mean though. With faces! Katie
yelps thinking she’d cornered the market on that idea. Gosh ,
Melanie says, this is serious -why didn’t we think of ice cream? or
hats. Katie says gloomily, noting that could be why
the guest percentage seems to be a little low ( she doesn’t even question
wether her decision to show all her feminist Donahue clips might’ve
swayed the numbers ) Nobody panic Beth barks , we won’t know
till tomorrow whose cupcakes were better. Melanie practically
swoons – she won’t sleep a wink with her social life hanging
in the balance like this!
11. I love a balloon cake – SVH – Todd decides to surprise Liz
with an upcoming anniversary that Liz is scrambling in
dismay to remember – is it the day before they very
nearly kissed? no that was last week, when he brings
out the balloon cake and nuzzles her ear encouragingly
– Liz don’t you remember that day? He says breathlessly ,
that day last Summer edition we took the hot air balloon
ride ( cause you took those hot air balloon lessons and
won that competition ) and we were making ou- kissing
and you said my Karate perfume was driving you wild and
you wore that sweater with the buttons down your back –
then, well ,you know – I still got your bra. Liz suddenly did
know and went stiff – whoever Todd was
with it wasn’t her!
12. Peanut Butter Cake – Peanut Butter & Jelly – Peanut has
had it with Peanut and Jilly this and Peanut and Jilly that – this
year the cake is hers and hers alone. It’s rather lonely though
and that monkey is kind of a downer.
13. Spooks and goblins party – Bad News Ballet – In honor
of the Girls upcoming Dracula themed Halloween concert, Hi-Lo
has decided to produce some very special cupcakes with a few
of his secret ingredients – Forgoing the recipes advice to use
gumdrops for the black cats on top of the cupcakes, besides he
doesn’t have gumdrops in his Pizza & Chines Food store,
he improvises with anchovies & black olives which isn’t
half as bad as the cake part which included both mozzarella
and pumpkin guts. After a couple of bites the girls decide
that maybe cutesy hangouts with inept cooks are
best left to the movies, besides has Hi-lo lost it? Are we expected
to pay for this? The girls head post hast to the nearest
McDonalds!
14. Slumber Party – Sleepover Friends –
It’s Stephanie’s fourth grade party natch, and she has just
developed her love for red black and white much to her
parents relief – Such a coordinated child! Her extensive
wardrobe is so interchangeable – think of all those 80’s
twits who buy shoes with magenta trim that matches only
one outfit. Mr. Green pats his wallet think of the money we’ll
save ( forgetting that Stephanie can find a major haul of red ,
black & white things ) Although there was a momentary
snag on what cake to give a color- challenged girl –
bunnies?- no way so babyish! And then it hit the Sleepover
Friends, who came to Mrs. Green’s ( who was culinary
backward anyway ) rescue – a Panda bear cake that was
just too darling and to combat the black and white icing –
all red decorations -The party was a total hit! ( Although
Jenny tried to sabotage the fun by altering the Panda bears
eyes so that it was always admiring her and Stephanie
had her suspicions that Jenny had also smuggled in the
offensive yellow gum drop) No matter, Lauren reassured
Stephanie that she was the hostest with the mostest in her
to die for black denim outfit with red sneaks. Too , true
Steph agreed – Sleepover Friends Forever.
15. North Pole Party – SVH – Bruce Patman is stunned
and momentarily touched by a sudden surprise party. It’s not
his birthday so what’s the occasion? The hallowed Sweet
Valley High gym is festooned with ice bergs , faux snow ,
fierce polar bears and an igloo cake. Starting to feel this
was a long time coming , he swaggers around his guests ,
scoffing the presence of Winston , Lois , and other lowlies
with a – this is for friends only sneer- his swagger loses
some panache however as he begins to get woozy. Is it
just him or does this punch taste an awful lot like the bang-up
mixture he softened easy Annie up with? It does – the mighty
Patman has been slipped a mickey by all his ‘friends’ and shipped
off to the north pole where Santa backlogged by his naughty
or nice list ( it’s hush hush but one of the reindeers
ate it – Donner but he’s pointing the antler at Rudolph ) has
finally discovered Bruce has been long over due a punishment.
On Christmas day – Winston receives in his stocking, a gnome
whose pleading eyes look suspiciously like Bruce’s and there,
on the bottom – the truth – 1BRUCE1.
16. Rag doll Tea Party – SVH –
Enid’s mother was a little pushy , a little distracted , hostile
even during the divorce – Enid had to be perfect – Mommy’s
little Angel. And for her upcoming birthday, Mother, once
again planned the festivities – Enid was horrified – did her mother
want her to be a nerd forever? – no jeans , no records , no
balloons. Her hair was curled to perfection, anchored by
barrettes that not only dangled oodles of streamers but
annoying plastic little teddy-weddy bears that kept slapping
her cheek. The sentence was carried out in yards of lace and
spit shined Mary Janes – a formal tea with rag doll salad to
eat. Only Enid’s mother was on the phone shouting at her
husband all morning that he was definitely not getting their
brand new Monte Carlo , and had messed up the recipe –
instead of a head made of a marshmallow their were raisin’s
stuck in a hard cooked egg! To Enid it’s a hazy memory
pushed into the recesses of her mind by the descent into
drugs and a wild crowd the following month – but she still
gets a faint chill at the sight of a hard cooked egg staring
blindly at her waiting for the insertion of eyes.
17. Have a ball glove cake – The Party Line –
The Party Line’s first attempt at obnoxious jerk Casey Wyatt’s
party cake before writer Carrie Austen stepped in and altered
reality, for a happy go lucky ending. Burning up that he lost ,
yes in reality the brat lost the baseball game to the lowly girls ,
a wicked grin curls across his lips when the girls smirkily approach
with his glove cat and baseball cupcakes. It really is too tempting
and suddenly the Party Line is diving under the picnic table as
the cupcake baseballs flew through the air. The sight of licorice
stitching dripping down Allie’s face was a major humiliation ( right
in front of Dylan Matthews – who in this version was present. ) The
girls solemnly agreed never to use the recipe again ( especially for
beastly boys ) or do parties for kids their own age – but that
of course didn’t, I repeat didn’t, happen because in book Four,
Rosie has roped them into doing Jennifer’s party.
18. Animal Friends birthday party – Best Friends –
Before Dawn Selby rallied herself a group of Best Friends her
parties consisted of her and her many stuffed toys – their was
Winky , and Snuffles , and Snowball and Phazz , and Pookie ,
and Funshine and Toodles and Barkley and MiMi and well,
actually, Funshine was not invited that year because she
spoiled the fun by actually eating her own slice of cake!
( How she managed that is a mystery Dawn keeps entirely
to herself. She also keeps Funshine under lock and key )
19. Princess Party – SVH –
– Mrs. Wakefield trucked out this princess party cake for her
precious princesses every year – each year two cakes –
that was until Jessica didn’t like sharing the title of Princess
and Mrs. Wakefield walked in to find that Elizabeth had been
crowned with her cake. Unfortunately Mrs. Wakefield found
the sight of toddler Liz wearing her cake too adorable and
snapped a picture that won Elizabeth the title of cutest baby ,
a ride on the Santa Claus float in the upcoming Winter Carnival
and a cash prize, that scored Liz a brand new winking Fisher
Price doll. Jessica was furious and ever since has tried to
upstage Liz every chance she could get ,
only to have each and every plan mysteriously foiled.
20. Train party – Couples – Before the couples actually became Couples
the crafty girls of Kennedy Middle school were a step ahead
of their would-be suitors and before any kissing games were
played at a birthday party , every boy had to have a slice
of train cake which was cleverly adorned with certs wheels
for fresh breath!
21. Pirate Party – Sorority Girls – buried treasure cake – Never
mind the Scott wording on the cake that was a boo boo but the
Pearls sorority are already behind schedule and they’ve left the
whole thing up to diabolical Paula Parker who has decided to
make the new pledges earn their exquisite peal bracelet by
diving face-first into the buried treasure cake – only one bracelet
and four pledges! Watch the icing fly!
22. Lolligog party – SVH – Winston’s party went unnoticed -again –
the kids might think it’s okay for him to tag along at school
and provide laughs at their parties but pu-leaze go to his house
fer-get it. His mother had high hopes and bags of lollipops but
Winston bounces back by incorporating a humourous revenge.
Taking the lollipops, Winston uses them for his upcoming social
studies project in which he has grafted them together to show
the ever evolving diagram of Jessica’s love life – complete with
goofy pictures of each victim icinged on , yes that does kinda
look like Aaron Dallas! Jessica is humiliated – the sucker model
is huge! Even easy Annie can gaily wave past her with a suckers-
to-be-you cry of slu*t!
23. Far away places – Charisma Inc.-
The girls at Charisma Inc were covertly shown their next
assignment via this globe cake with strategically placed flags
and exploding wooden dolls hiding topnotch information, until
of course the flag is wrongly placed by an fussily artistic baker
and Kelly Ryan finds herself trying to romance the goods out of
one lucky Eskimo!
24. Age of Aquarius cake – The Zodiac Club who can’t get
enough of what sign are you ordered up this cake to go with
their swinging seventies party. However the harmony abruptly
ends when ,ahem, Scorpio demands a slice of cake larger than
her symbol and thus begins yet another boring discussion on
their symbolic traits ( how like an , ahem, Scorpio ) until new
member , ahem, Saggitarius cried out I can’t stand it – I’m in
on false impressions I am not , ahem, Sagittarius! leaving the
other girls speechless and the needle to atmosphericaly
scratch over their precious Fifth Dimension record until
they, mulling it over, tried to decided which sign would
encompass such a liar.
25. Adventures in Space -Abracadabra – Dawn’s spell
casting has gotten out of control! During a dull home economics
class , where her and Jennifer’s attempt at pretzels becomes
a class joke , Jennifer abandons the tasks and forms her pretzels
into the shapes of mischievous Martians with a sly joke of
teaching the others a lesson but a hiccup from Dawn
inadvertently brings them to life! The one with the
jellybean antenna has become the groups nonofficial
leader Zyme ( who elected him?! ) and has taken over
home ec. which is fine with the students who are
missing a math quiz. While Zyme is trying to get his
jelly jiggler craft to fly , Mrs. Simone the home ec.
Teacher raises a coo to reclaim her kitchen.
26. Rodeo Roundup – The Girls of Canby Hall – The cooks
at Canby Hall in particular Miss MacGregor whose hairnet
has always been latched a little too tight, have had it with
all the complaints. Miss MacGregor is especially furious with
the trio in room 407 – what makes them so special? Drinking
their Tab soda and their three boyfriends ( well of course that
seems just average – but it’s three more than Miss MacGregor
ever had in high school – back when she was know as
Hurl-me-Gertie ) Cackling to herself she plots a diabolical scheme
pouring pancake batter onto a hot skillet, she forms a letter,
the letter K and as she stacks up four pancakes high on each
plate the dire messages are sent out in the form of a stack
of steaming flapjacks – K-I-L-L. Of which , goes completely
unnoticed by Faith , Shelley and Dana who devour every
bite and say – Good , for a change.
27. Arty Party – Sleepover Friends – For Patti’s upcoming
birthday party the girls have come to a standstill – with
Stephanie begging for a too cool black and white cake –
perhaps like my panda bear? and Kate not too kindly
reminding her it’s Patti’s birthday – Lauren saves the day
by solving both problems – a cake scientific- minded Patti
would love and it’s all red , black and white – An adorable
Ladybug – remember that day in the life of report she did
of a ladybug? Unfortunately Stephanie was showing them
the latest dance moves from the Hot Tamales while baking
the awesome cake , and some of the ingredients got
mixed up with the art project they were working on that
included painted rocks and everyone looks to the brave
Kate to take the first bite. Think of it as a dare Stephanie
says , Kate holds her nose – I’m going to get you for
this Stephanie.
28. Circus Jelly bean Cake – Babysitter’s club – The evidence
of how Dawn became a sugar-hater. Stacey needed an injection
just looking at it.
29. Corndogs & Crunchy Peanut Butter Balls – Cheerleaders –
From Misunderstandings – #12 3/4 Mary Ellen & Olivia are not
speaking to the boys – Pres and Walt, ever since that disastrous
party when they asked them to take care of the refreshments.
Pres doesn’t know what that priss Mary Ellen’s problem is, the
party was a smashing success – sort of. Now both he and Walt
are bewildered as too why, the girls suddenly want them off the
team. Pres is being hissed at in class, by strange girls with
murderous looks in their eye – sex maniac they say –
well , well , well – not the worst thing that could happen
to his reputation. How did it all start? The party. Did he even
talk to Mary Ellen at the party? oh yes, he offered her one
of his corn dogs ( pushing she later called it describing the
horrible incident to Ardith – in a definite, lewd manor ) , and Walt
who had talked about his speciality, so much, in school
…something about – peanut butter balls… in the back of
his truck – some of the girls never even showed up –
Can the boys clear up this misunderstanding in time
for the big game?
30. Button Cookies – SVH – Things were getting psychadelic
at the SVH party last Friday, especially when everyone
grabbed for the button cookies. Winston , ever the clown,
showed Jessica his Hot Stuff cookie and waggled his eye
brows hopefully. Jessica’s look was as frosty as her icing
reading out – Cool It. She was waiting for the hunky new
exchange student , who didn’t speak a word of English ,
to flash her his Do you dig it? Cookie ( For which she would
lunge for Lila’s Go For it Cookie ) however Bruce in the
way got the now questionable message resulting in a
fist fight and Bruce’s I’m Super ( he altered the script )
cookie was trampled underfoot. Into this melee cookie
messages were thrust into the air – Groovy from Todd
( who noted Bruce was getting his pampered butt
kicked ) , Hot Dog from Ken , Smile from Liz who
was sympathetic to Jessica’s plight and Sucker from
Enid ( not pictured ) who was not.
