Sunday afternoon my 12 year old daughter, Elizabeth, asked me if she could make a dessert. "Of course," was my reply. Especially since one of the advantages to having your children grow up is allowing them to do things that you might not have time for yourself...and being on bed rest...baking is not on the list of my top priorities right now.
A couple of hours later I realized that Elizabeth hadn't even been in the kitchen so I asked her what she was going to bake and when...At that moment it was 6:30 pm. I remembered I had promised dessert to the other 4 children based on Elizabeth's enthusiasm to bake and if she wasn't going to bake I was in BIG trouble. Bed time was coming...and a promise is a promise. So, I did what a lot of wise parents do and I threatened my 12 year old with no computer privileges for the next day and bribed her she'd get an extra hour to stay up late if she'd just make something.
After some coaxing and multiple suggestions she agreed to make a yummy easy to make lemon poppy seed bundt cake. My 10 year old, Noah, loves this cake and was eager to help. He found the recipe and brought it to me for my approval and to get some tips. I thought everything was going great...
An hour later and I asked my kids about the cake. They told me it still wasn't cooked. I was concerned as I remembered it to only take about 40 minutes to bake. Another 40 minutes passed. Elizabeth said she finally took it out of the oven but sensed that something didn't seem quite right. For starters, she turned the cake out onto a plate and half of the cake stayed in the pan. I assured her that even with all the greasing and flouring it can happen to the best of us. I told her to scrape the top half out and put it on the cake like a puzzle, drizzle some glaze on it and no one would care. I really wanted her to feel successful to promote further baking skills and continue to bail me out of dessert dilemmas
My husband, Ray, was eager to assist the cutting and serving of a family favorite. Each child took an anticipated bite to only quickly spit it out. Everyone wailed in disappointment. Elizabeth came to me in distress. We reviewed the recipe in detail. The recipe called for one box of yellow cake mix. Elizabeth interpreted that to mean that she had to make that cake first according to the package instructions and then add my recipe to the batter. She ended up making a 7 egg cake with enough oil to be explosive, which may be why Noah complained of our kitchen being filled with smoke during the baking process...HMMM....
I am happy that while no one had dessert that night, no one really complained about it either. I did manage to drag myself out of bed and made The cake for them last night. It was devoured.
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