'Mixy-mixy, pancake-ixy

Bakey-bakey, pancake-makey

Take your seaty, pancake-eaty'

She took out three eggs and threw them high into the air. One dropped on her head and broke, and the egg yolk dripped into her eyes. But she expertly caught the others in a saucepan where they cracked open.

‘Well, they say egg yolk is good for your hair,’ Pippi said, wiping her eyes. ‘You watch, it’ll come sprouting out of my head now. In Brazil, by the way, everyone walks around with egg in their hair, and of course you never see a bald head anywhere. There was only one man silly enough to eat up all his eggs instead of putting them on his head. And do you know what? He went bald, as expected. And whenever he set foot outside there was such a hullabaloo the police had to be called for.’

While she had been speaking Pippi had very handily scooped all the pieces of egg shell out of the saucepan with her fingers. Then she took a long-handled scrubbing brush from its hook on the wall and began whisking the pancake batter so fast it splashed all over the walls. Finally she poured what was left into a pancake pan that was heating on the stove. When the pancake was cooked on one side she tossed it half-way to the ceiling and caught it in the pan again, and when it was ready she threw it right across the kitchen and onto a plate that was waiting on the table.

‘Eat!’ she shouted. ‘Eat, before it gets cold!’

Tommy and Annika ate and thought it was a very delicious pancake.

Translation: Susan Beard

‘Oh Mum, everything is so boring,’ I said.
‘Is it?’ said Mum. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Yes, because all it does is rain and rain,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘If I were you I would bake a sponge cake,’ said Mum.
Mum said that exactly as if I knew how to bake a sponge cake. But I didn’t. That is, I had never tried. But guess what! I made a sponge cake all by myself, and very good it was too. Although Mum told me what to do, of course. This is what I did.

First I whisked together two eggs and two coffee cups of sugar in a bowl. I whisked for a long time, and that was fun. Then I melted a big lump of butter in a saucepan and mixed it into the frothy mixture. Then I put in flour and milk. I don’t remember exactly how much. I also put in grated lemon peel and baking powder.

While I was making the cake I wore a large white apron and white head scarf. Oh, how exciting it was when Mum took my cake out of the oven! She tipped it out onto a clean tea towel and it was all light brown and spongy. I had no idea I was so good at making sponge cakes. Mum thought I should take some of my cake and some squash up to Lasse and Bosse. So I did. That made them very glad. And very surprised too, when I told them it was me who had made the cake.

Translation: Susan Beard