In Which....The 7yo Bakes a Cake!

Yesterday, I was briefly feeling a little under the weather. To make me feel better, our eldest decided to bake me a cake!

Mind you, while he has often helped in the kitchen, he has not yet made anything on his own.

When I showed up half an hour later, he had mixed up some sort of concoction of eggs, sugar, milk, and... hot chocolate powder.

I was extremely doubtful as to its ultimate fate, but I want to encourage any instance of helpfulness or kindness, so I immediately offered to bake it off for him. He cheerfully assented, so into the oven it went. To my intense surprise, it actually set up a bit and smelled not too bad!

We all sampled it later, and it tasted like... hmm. I guess it tasted like an overly-sweet soggy chocolate quiche-pudding. No one went back for seconds (or even a second bite), but that's not bad for a 7yo's first free-hand cake! In actuality, he was only off a bit from an authentic flour-less chocolate cake (chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar).

Obviously, great culinary accomplishments are ahead.

Afterwards, I helped him to make our favorite Fannie Farmer's Golden Cake (we love Fannie Farmer from Fannie in the Kitchen), which came out beautifully.

With lemon glaze from our leftover King Cake. YUM.

I love seeing big jumps in responsibility and ability like this. Sometimes it just takes that little, "Okay, maybe we haven't arrived, but we're getting somewhere" to give hope along the parenting journey. Seeing the jump from, "I don't care that mommy is sick, I need such-and-such" to "Mommy is sick, so I'm going to bake her a cake!" is huge. Huge, big, earth-shaking, and immeasurably cheering.

Life is good.

Have a wonderful night, dear friends.