Surprise Party

Stephanie was turning 30. When I contacted her husband, he let me know that Lisa had already contacted him. So we worked together. I did the food and Lisa did the decor for the surprise party.

It took me a while to come up with an appropriate menu for a 5 course dessert tasting. Especially one that could be easily transported. After much testing and thinking, I had it down. And, Jason and the kids didn't mind the many baking experiments I did in the process.
I began with my Mom's yummy strawberry dip - romanoff. I used an egg slicer to cut all the strawberries and put the romanoff in a squeeze bottle to make it look more elegant and easily transported.

The second course was a mini version of my mint chocolate brownie cupcakes. I figured a full size cupcake would sugar us all out by the second course. And, they just were so adorable in miniature.
The third course was Jason's famous homemade cake batter ice cream. Yes, in those two courses we accomplished the obligatory birthday cake and ice cream and did it without putting two chocolate items next to each other. I used a cookie scoop to accomplish the perfect little rounds. Oh, and we had a lot of fun with the dry ice that we used in transporting the ice cream after we got home!

I also did the peanut butter chocolate cookies from this post, but learned to bake them for only 9 minutes or they were just too dry, for the fourth course. And we ended with one of Steph's favorite treats - key lime pie! I made them individual sized in prepared graham cracker crusts that apparently can only be purchased at Walmart. I put a candle - purple to match Lisa's decor - in the pie and we all sung to her. I think she enjoyed it!

The night was lovely and filled with lots of laughs and stories. The food was well-received, the company was great, and the paper cranes floating above our heads made it magical. It was a wonderful time!

** Thank you to Lisa for the pictures! I was a complete airhead and forgot my camera.