First cooking lesson

Recently Amelia made a strange comment regarding the origin of pastries. It seemed she had no idea that you could actually make cakes and cupcakes yourself at home. So I decided that I would help the girls make cupcakes for the first time.

Amelia chose chocolate cake and chocolate frosting for her first baking experience. I did everything I could to keep our cooking lesson from turning into a disaster. I had the girls sit at the kitchen table, brought all of the ingredients together for them, grabbed the biggest mixing bowl I could find, and let them try things slowly - one at a time.

Because my recipe called for three eggs (and I had more than a dozen on hand), I thought I would give both of the girls a chance to break an egg. First, I demonstrated how to break an egg into the empty bowl. Then I let Amelia break the second egg. Her egg came out scrambled by the time she got the shell open, but there wasn't a single piece of shell in the bowl (that I could see) and I was proud of the job she did.

Diana did okay with her egg, but watching her with a raw egg in her hands was very nerve-wracking. Once she had tapped the egg a few times on the side of the mixing bowl she brought the egg down to her lap to better crack the egg open. In my mind all I could see was a lap full of runny, raw egg. I kept reminding Diana, "Over the bowl. Do it over the bowl," But she got irritable when I tried to move her hands and said, "I do it!"

Eventually I got the bright idea to slide the mixing bowl under Diana's hands and she got all of her egg into the bowl. Sure, there was one large piece of eggshell, but it was easily spotted and removed by mommy.

The girls did a good job with the water, the oil and the mixing, but weren't particularly good at separating the paper cups at first. In fact, when I handed Diana her half of the paper cupcake cups she wasn't sure what to do with them, even after a demonstration. When I took her cups and divided them in half again for her, she put the two small stacks of paper cups into two recesses in the muffin pan and proudly declared, "I'm done!"

Though Diana was a good helper at the kitchen table, she wasn't exactly the image of patience waiting for the cupcakes to bake. After about five minutes she started bouncing with irritation and crying, "I wanna cupcake!" When they came out of the oven, it took all of my wiles to keep the girls distracted long enough for the cake to cool before it was frosted. Even then, Diana started eating her cupcake as soon as I took my eyes off her and before I had given her any frosting.

The whole thing was a great experience. I would have chosen white frosting, but other than that everything went perfectly. I don't think the girls are quite ready to stir fry anything, but I may try to let them help me in the kitchen a little more in the future.

Lisa