3 little children bake a cake

There's a series of books. 5 Little Monkeys... They get into a whole lot of shenanigans. They get bored. They jump on the bed. They sit in a tree. And they bake a cake. I am fond of the series because they are my twins in a nutshell. Plus I am pretty sure that if Muffin were old enough, he'd join in the shenanigans too. Except...I am not having 2 more just to fill up the brood!

Anyway, the twins are very familiar with the stories too. So, one afternoon, I decided that we, like the little monkeys, were going to bake a cake. And to bake a cake for Ah Ma because it was Ah Ma and Ah Gong's anniversary.

On top of that, I feel that the children miss baking. At their previous school, they spent quite a bit of time baking and cooking. This school, not so much. So out came the flour, sugar, oil and eggs to make Ah Ma something baked and edible.

I chose to try to bake Banana Bread. I couldn't bake something too rich because my in laws shouldn't eat rich stuff in those proportions. Plus, with banana bread, the twins not only got to add flour and stir mixtures (of which, there were 3 bowls!), they got to mash banana using a knife. These knives were safe, even by airline standards, but had enough edge in them to slice the banana.

Of course, some of the banana made its way into the children's mouths. I didn't stop them then. I only stopped them when they tried to taste one of the mixture bowls. The one with raw egg in it. Salmonella is not a funny disease to acquire.


Mixing the plain and whole wheat flour together with cinnamon. Evan loved the smell of the cinnamon. He got flour on his nose and proceeded to look like a coke addict.



















Even Muffin got in on the action. He was much pleased. When we took the whisk away, he cried.



Jordan found a packet of chocolate chips we used previously for other baking experiments and proceeds to place them, one at a time, into the batter. It took a long time but it was a wonderful addition to the banana bread. Especially when the choc chips were melted and slightly oozy fresh out of the oven.

Evan had fun with Daddy's basting brush as he brushed on oil into the tin.


















The end product. Doesn't look very pretty but the twins were proud of it, Ah Ma liked it and I was proud of them.




















Plus it kept them busy for an entire hour!

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