the girl bakes a cake... sort of

This week, the girl (6 years old) informed me that she wanted to bake my birthday cake.  (Awe, what a sweet gesture!)  I had planned to try out this secret family recipe for carrot cake from a baker friend of mine, BUT, I wasn't about to try to manage a 6 year old (and inevitably the 4 and 1 year olds) actually grating real carrots along with all of the other things involved.  So I opted for a boxed mix.  I also got a can of preservative laced sugar-lard masquerading as frosting.

On the night before my birthday, the girl had no interest in baking at all.  She wanted to color the poster that she got at the book fair.  I started pulling out supplies and doing the more difficult tasks (greasing and flouring the pans).  Then she was interested.  We started reading the directions together.  We made sure we had all of the ingredients (a practice taught to me by my mother - THANK YOU MOM!!).  Then it was time to turn on the oven.  I am both glad and sad.  She is terrified of the stove.  I showed her how to do it and she is just too afraid to touch it.  I gave up and did it for her. 

We got all the ingredients into the bowl with no problems, she even removed the shells from the eggs before mixing them in.  Then when it was time to mix, she was again afraid: of the mixer

 (at this moment I had visions of her in her home in 15 years, rocking in a corner, living off PB&J sandwiches with crusts cut off because she's afraid of all the appliances).

I dug the antique hand-crank mixer (fun little gadget, I remember when that's all we had when I was a kid).  We used it for about 20 seconds and she said, "I'm tired, Mommy, I think it's your turn."  I let the boy stir with a spoon for a little bit, until he too was bored and off to make monkey-car noises

(no, I don't know what the heck a monkey-car is either).

 So I finished mixing, and put the cake in to bake.  I pulled it out of the oven when it was time, frosted the cake after cooling, it was actually not bad looking.  It smelled great!

((At this point I was tempted to eat the entire cake myself, not sharing a la "The Little Red Hen."  If you aren't familiar with the story, here's a link - cute, nice moral about helping out if you want to enjoy the fruits of labor http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18735/18735-h/18735-h.htm))

We all did have cake after dinner on my birthday.  It was yummy.  Another year come and gone.