Baking a Birthday Cake

“Dad, come on!” E. Claire cried. “I’m ready to start the cake!” Chris laughed. “Okay,” he said, patting the small Katragoon on the head. “We can get started. We won’t be able to finish until your mother a sibling get back from the store with the decorations, though.”

“I know, but if we have it all ready by the time they get here, we won’t have to wait at all for the decorating!”

“Well, I will admit that decorating is the fun part!” Chris laughed again and scooped the little girl up in his arms. He nuzzled her belly, making her laugh, before putting her up on the counter. “You wait here while I get the ingredients. You can grab the sugar. It’s over there in the blue jar.”

“Okay, daddy!” E. Claire carefully walked across the counter until she reached the jar her father had pointed out. As she reached for it, she bumped the green jar next to it. She tried to grab it before it fell, but she missed, and in the process had knocked over the blue jar as well. She scurried to the other side of them to look at the mess. “Uh oh,” she whispered.

“I need to grab something from the laundry room. I’ll be right back!” Chris shouted as he walked out of the kitchen. He didn’t seem to have noticed the mess she made.

“This one is sugar,” E. Claire whispered as she picked the blue jar up. “But what is this?” she said as she propped the green jar back up as well. “They both look the same…”

A massive pile of white powder laid on the counter at her feet. She scooped up a handful of the stuff and peered closely at it. She couldn’t really see much of a difference, except that maybe some of the tiny white grains was a little bigger than the others. E. Claire put a finger on her mouth and thought. She squinted at the substance again. “Well, this is a bakery. There is probably just more than one container of sugar. Maybe the green one is a different kind of sugar.” She started gathering handfuls of the powder and putting it back into the jars. “I sure hope they taste the same!”

Chris hadn’t come back from the laundry room yet by the time she’d finished cleaning up the powdery mess. As she wiped her hands together to get the last of the stuff off of them, she noticed that the two jars were not filled evenly. She couldn’t remember if they had started out that way or not. She began scooping from the green jar and putting the powder into the blue jar. She accidentally moved too much, so she picked up the blue jar and started to carefully pour it into the green jar. Once she was content that the two were perfectly even, she picked the blue jar up and walked back to the other side of the counter.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, sugar!” Chris announced cheerfully as he walked back into the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure where you mother had hidden this,” he said. He pulled a small red and green apron with the name E. Claire embroidered on it in fancy white script. E. Claire’s eyes lit up in delight.

“Oh, dad, it’s wonderful!” she said as she jumped up and down. She accidentally jumped too close to the sink and stumbled in. “Ouch,” she said, rubbing her head. Chris laughed and scooped her up out of the sink. He tied the apron around her.

“Happy birthday, little baker!” he exclaimed cheerfully. “Your mother will get the matching one for your twin when she gets home. Twin aprons for my twins!”

“That’s so cool! Will she be mad that you gave me mine already?”

“I’m sure she won’t mind. Besides, we can’t have you getting all messy before the party, can we?”

“I guess not.” E. Claire turned to the blue jar and held it out carefully to her father, trying very hard not to drop it. “I got the sugar like you asked!” She decided not to tell him about the mess she’d made by knocking the two jars over.

“Great job, sugar! Let’s get to baking!”

Chris laid the ingredients out on the counter and explained each one to E. Claire. As a baker, he wanted her to know not just what goes into the cake, but why each ingredient is needed. If she also wanted to be in the food industry one day making her own yummy dishes, it would be good to start giving her little tips and tricks early on. When they were finished, they put the cake pans in the oven to bake.

“Dad, can we taste the batter?” E. Claire asked. She was too excited to try her creation to wait for the ones in the oven to be done.

“Well, you should avoid doing it too much so you don’t get sick, but just this once shouldn’t hurt.”

The two Kats each scraped a finger against the bowl to scoop out some of the leftover batter. They popped their fingers in their mouths at the same time, and then immediately spat the mixture into the sink.

“Ew! Ew, ew, ew! What’s wrong with it? What did I do wrong?” E. Claire exclaimed and she wiped her tongue. Disappointment stung at her and tears welled up in her eyes.

“I’m not sure what happened!” Chris started flipping through the ingredients they used. “These eggs were fresh, the sugar shouldn’t have anything wrong with it.”

The sugar.

“Um, dad?” E. Claire said with her head hanging low. Chris turned to her with confusion on his face. “I spilled the blue jar and the green jar. I wasn’t sure what was in the green one, so I just put it all back in both of them. Could that be what went wrong?”

Chris groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. He walked over to the green jar and popped the lid off. He grabbed a pinch and put it on his tongue. He dramatically smacked his lips together. “Yep. That is some sweet salt, right there.”

E. Claire’s eyes filled up with tears again. “I’m so sorry, dad! I ruined the whole party. What will we do without a cake?” she wailed.

“Aw, sugar, don’t cry,” Chris said, giving her a comforting pat on the back. He leaned close to her and whispered loudly, “You know, I always told your mother we should put labels on the jars, but she said the colors should be enough to tell them apart.” He smiled sweetly at her. “Now, dry your tears. I think we have enough time to give this another try. What do you say?” He held his hand out to her.

E. Claire wiped her eyes off on her apron and smiled. “That sounds like fun.”