Rapunzel Party Part 2 The Food

Yesterday I talked all about the decorations so today I'll tell about the food.  I decided not to serve all the creative "Tangled dishes" I found when I did a Google search for Rapunzel parties.  I liked seeing so many creative movie inspired foods in my online searching.  Honestly, I wanted to have a perfect Rapunzel party but my little girl had no interest in hazelnut soup.  I couldn't find enough cast iron frying pans to use for serving plates AND I had a firm budget I had to work around.  In the end, I decided to serve BBQ sandwiches, meatballs, and PB &J.  We added chips, mac-n-cheese, veggie sticks, and pasta salad (mac-n-cheese and pasta salad some very kind friends brought to the party).

After picking the foods I could afford (and foods the b-day girl would eat) I knew I would need to "fancy up" my not so pretty looking foods.  Hot foods were all in crock pots so I played around with ways to make pretty looking PB &J sandwiches.  My 7 year old got lots of trial sandwiches packed in her lunch the week before the party.   After lots of tries, I ended up liking a simple PB &J sandwich on white bread cut diagonally and dipped into colorful cake sprinkles. They were easy to make and I thought they looked pretty standing on a plate. I didn't have to make all the sandwiches.  two of my friends put them together for me the day of the party (having helpful friends is the key when planning a party). 

To make the food counter look like it went with Rapunzel theme I covered the counter in purple cloth, added a yellow skirt, placed  paper flowers around, and made the jello boats. 

For the treat table I made 3 kinds of cupcakes, lemon cookies, sandwich cookies.  marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles, brownies, 100 cake balls/cake pops (my mom made them all for me), a lollipop topiary, a tower cake, and a candy buffet.  This table looked yummy from all sides.  I did go over budget with my cake/candy table.  I made all the baked good myself (well, my mom make the cake pops and my husband made the lemon cookies) The candy part of the table quickly raised the cost but it was worth it.  Even the adults seemed to enjoy this part of the party.  I saved some money by making my own buffet jars and cake plates.

The tower cake... This was my love/hate part of the party planning.  My daughter wanted a Rapunzel party with a purple dress, cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes, AND a TOWER CAKE!   That is exactly how she responded every time I asked about her party.  Purple dress was no problem.  The cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes were simple enough to do.  BUT!  The Rapunzel tower cake?  This part make me laugh, cry, cry some more, stomp in frustration, and pray.  I wanted to make a tower cake out of doughnuts or pecan rolls.  I found many online and they looked like something I might be able to make.  Zehira didn't like them.  I begged and bribed her but she would not budge. She wanted a tower cake it had to be cake and a tower.  I asked her if a tower out of  Rice Krispy Treats would be okay for her cake and she LOVED that idea!  I made several Rice Krispy towers a few weeks before the party trying to figure out how to build a nice tower.  They kept falling over!   It was funny at first but after the third one fell over I started to cry when I saw them fall.  I tried adding cake dowels for supports.  I skipped the butter one time (I read that would make it stronger but for me it only made a big mess in my cooking pot).   I crushed up the cereal before making the Rice Krispy Treats.... All of my early tries fell down.  The day before the party I made up another batch of Rice Krispy Treats.   I crushed up some of the cereal (smushed with my hands) before mixing them in the pot.  I used one cake dowel in the center of the cake.  I firmly pushed the rice treats onto the cake plate and around the dowel.  This was the key to getting it to hold.  I really had to squeeze the treats to mold them firmly in place.  I crushed the treats with firm hands to make sure it was stuck on the place and the dowel.  I then melted white chocolate and covered the tower.  Once the chocolate was cool it held the tower firm.  I used an ice-cream cone covered in chocolate (colored purple) to top my tower.   I used brown icing to add details.   I tried to remember the cake decorating classes I took many years ago when I added the ivy (leaf cake tip).  The sugar flowers are Wilton (found them in Walmart cake decorating section).  My girl was happy with the end result.  I feel I could have done a nicer job if I wasn't so frazzled from all the other sample tower cakes falling.  My three children had fun eating all my fallen towers weeks before the party.   The cake sat on a wrought iron stand (I think it was for potted plants).  I picked up the stand at the thrift store, I cleaned it up, and painted it purple .  

Here's the view from the other side of the table.  

This is my mom holding a cupcake with candles as we sang to the birthday girl.

 I LOVE this photo (did I mention how important it is to hire a photographer).

Class A Photography even captured the birthday wishing!

We ate cake (I'll explain why my daughter's hair is such a mess in my next post).

And we ate cookies and candy.

 Tomorrow I'll share the party activities we did (and the activities we forgot to do).

 I have to thank Class A Photography for all the beautiful photos!