The kids asked me out of the blue yesterday if we could make a cake for Daddy. I was very surprised as they never ask me to bake anything. There are two reasons why I am assuming they do not ask me to teach them how to do this ever so domestic task....
1.) They get their need to bake out of their systems when they go to grandma and papa's house on Tuesdays. Grandma bakes cookies, cakes, rice krispy bars, and all that yummy stuff with them, and they love it. She is good like that.
2.) They have in the past seen my attempt at baking and know I am horrible at it. I really mean it when I say horrible. No jokes here - let me explain....
My first attempt at baking was way before marriage, kids and all that jazz. I was still comfortably living at home in my late teens, enjoying life to the fullest when I thought it would be nice to cook dinner for my mom and family to show my appreciation for all she had done for me. Well, my mom being my mom, said that was such a nice offer, and that she would make the main course if I took care of making the buscuits. This does not seem like a very hard task, right? Simply read the directions on the back of the box, mix all ingredients, pour into cup cake molds and bake. Voila! Ummm... not the case. I swear I followed the directions to the Tee, but when I went to serve them, they were a bit... let's just say - hard. So hard you could not even bite into them. So hard, in fact, my brother equated them to being as hard as a hockey puck. Needless to say, they were thrown into the garbage can, and that was the last time I ever tried making biscuits again.
After this incident, I did not do too much baking of any kind as I figured I just was not that great at it. But then I got married, had kids, and thought I would give it another try. I have (since Ava was born) tried numerous times to make cakes for birthdays, cookies for Christmas, etc all with disastrous outcomes. I figured it must be because I was trying to accomplish these tasks from scratch,and from scratch can be very difficult - at least in my mind. SO, I decided to switch it up and bake only pre-made items, you know, box cake mixes, pre-made cookies found in the refrigerator section at the grocery store, that kind of stuff. If you can believe it, I managed to mess those up as well. I would burn the cake, not cook it well enough, not mix the batter well enough - Oh the things I would do wrong were endless. Not to mention the frustration level I would reach in trying to understand why I could not accomplish the simplest of tasks like turning on the oven, putting pre-made cookies on a cookie sheet, and baking them all without having an end result of throwing them in the garbage can.
SO, I decided to admit defeat, and just succumb to the fact that baking was not one of my strong suits. Yes folks, I hung up my apron, put away my expensive KitchenAid mixer and called it quits.
UNTIL Yesterday when the kids (as I mentioned earlier) asked to bake Daddy a cake. I cautiously agreed, and went to the store to buy the items needed in order to do so. Boxed cake mix, frosting, and heart shaped cake mold.
With a deep breath, I pulled out my apron, my KithenAid mixer, and started to make the cake. I let the kids crack the eggs and they managed to not get one piece of the egg shell in the bowl. I have to say Bravo to Grandma as she is the only one who could have possibly taught them how to properly crack an egg. They each got a crack at mixing the batter, and at the end of it all I let them lick the spoon and the bowl. This was always my favorite part of baking with my mom, so I had to let them have at it, and did they ever have at it!
Lucas licking the chocolate off the Spatula.
Ava scraping the bottom of the pan with the spatula to get every last lick of chocolate....
Looks of contentment, and messy faces, after licking the bowl clean
After mixing was complete, we poured the yummy batter into the cute heart shaped mold and baked. So far so good, no disasters yet!! Maybe Mom wouldn't mess this one up - the kids could barely contain their excitement...
My nerves started to get the best of me as the cake was in the oven. I was thinking back to all my past screw ups, and the disappointment on the kids faces when we had to throw whatever it was we were baking at the time in the garbage. I told myself this was not going to happen this time. We were going to be successful in our pursuit to make a perfect chocolate heart shaped cake for Daddy - And if you can believe it, we were!!!! It turned out perfectly - the kids were happy, and Daddy was happy that they baked such a special cake for him.
It turns out I may just have to take that KitchenAid Mixer out of storage for good, and hang that apron back up on the hook in the kitchen.
Look out people, Maria can bake!!
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