Party bags, love them or loathe them, are possibly the most important thing in the world of small people’s parties. You can have your bouncy castle, your treasure hunt, your pass the parcel, your piñata and even your magician, but for kids it’s all about the party bag.

I’ve filled bags with lots of different items over the years; bubbles, children’s chopsticks, stretchy little men, bouncy balls, Mickey cups and of course copious amounts of sweets, but this year I wanted to be a purist and go with a theme. The party was a pirate party so what better than a pirate loot bag with a sea cake recipe. Each child received a bag with their name on:

Which contained 12 cupcakes and some treasure for decorating sea cakes with:

Pirate icing sugar:

Pirate self raising flour (110g), caster sugar (110g) and baking powder (5g):

A personalised wooden spoon, a pirate sea cakes recipe (click to be taken to another page, click again and then ‘enable editing’ to read/print whole recipe sheet) and a treasure map:

A sea monster or a ring:

And some pirate tattoos:

Of course the party had a sandy hunt for buried treasure:

Personal pirate water to quench thirst:

Walk the plank:

A little treasure for those who managed to walk the plank (and for those who didn’t):

Some chocolate and ginger biscuits for the pirate parents:

There were white choc & apricot and sultana & cherry oaty biscuits too. The base recipe is here, just add whatever you fancy to the mix. And the best bit about these party bags? By the time we’d got home from the church hall I’d received 3 photos of cakes already made by our visiting pirate pals. Here are Pirate Jack’s sea cakes:

Ta da! Pirate party done. Now for the dinosaur hunting one in 2 weeks. We have to stop having children in October…