Pippi Party

Lizzie turned 7 on Monday ::sniff:: and we had a party for her today. In an attempt to steer her away from a Barbie theme for the party, I had suggested a Pippi Longstocking theme. Check out the braids!

The theme turned out to be a bit more difficult to execute than I had thought. A friend suggested we make personalized pancakes a la Pippi and perhaps a scavenger hunt (as she is a “Thing Finder” and all). Not wanting my kitchen to resemble Pippi’s, I opted out of the pancake idea. Brad planned out the scavenger hunt with rhyming clues and hidden treasure (chocolate coins, Swedish fish and candy from China and Japan). It was fun and got them outside a bit. Too bad it didn’t last a little bit longer. We took a quick break for pepparkakor and moved on to Hullabaloo, a little present opening and then enough playtime to finish these:

Yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I used the recipes from The New Best Recipe and was quite pleased with the results. The cupcakes resembled a pound cake in texture and the sour cream added depth to the flavor. The frosting was a whipped ganache (hot cream poured over chopped chocolate and stirred until smooth). Yummy! My only complaint was that the recipe only makes a dozen. I’ll definitely need to make a double batch next time.

After the day of the cleaning, baking, hiding treasure and getting sugar-high kids to bed, I am ready to hit the hay. Just as soon as I finish this row…