Cooking up a storm (disaster!) 

I’m not a proud baker. Not in the slightest. I think cakes and bakes have always been a matter of luck rather than charm or talent (and a hefty dose of “cheating”) Yes, Dr Oetker, and Betty Crocker I’m looking at you! 

It’s probably a good thing. Because now we have the toddler. Baking has become an entirely bigger level of mess and “oops”! 

Today the toddler has been shouting CAKE at me. (He’s also been saying chocolate, not a word I’ve taught him, I shall be having words with Daddy!!) rather than trundle in to town and face the noise of the general public I decided that today is a good day to bake our own cakes. For once we have eggs in the house, as well as a great big bag of caster sugar and a muffin case or 3. 

  
First glance at the recipe. 125g (4oz) of sugar and 125g of butter (at room temp!) 

That’s no where near enough I decide and double the ingredients to 250g off the bat. 

A deft flick of my wrist and the oven comes to life, warming through to 160 whilst toddler and I get on with the next bit. 

The butter is no where near soft. It’s fresh out of the fridge. A quick 10 second blast in the microwave somehow turns in to a 1 minute blast and I now have molten butter. 

Oh well! 

  
Adding in the sugar, Sebastien is helping whilst I try not to let him dip his fingers in the butter. 290g rather than 250g get added to the bowl

Oh well! But! No burnt toddler fingers = Success! 

Next comes 2 eggs, now doubled to 4 I break them in to the bowl whilst toddler does the mixing. 

  
Hmm. There’s no vanilla essence on this recipe. That can’t be right. 

I dig it out of the cupboard

In goes the vanilla essence. Oh! Wait!no! That’s Glycerine! Luckily only about a teaspoon worth! 

Oh well! 

We will add cocoa powder instead. 

I pass the cocoa and a spoon to the toddler whilst I weigh the flour in to a sieve. 

Of course. He doesn’t use the spoon (why did I even think he would?!) and the entire 90g or so of cocoa powder gets tipped in the bowl, followed by a happy “there you go Mama” from the toddler. 

Oh well! 

I reach in the cupboard for the cupcake cases to discover the red food colouring staring back at me ah! What the hell! In goes the food colouring. Hopefully it will make the cake look a little less poo coloured! Toddler is fascinated by the pretty swirly pattern as I whisk the food dye and cocoa powder in to the bowl “waaaaaaaa, Red” he says with a big smile on his face! Oh my! He knows the colour red! When did that happen!? Clever boy! Oh. This is fun! Let’s add more red dye!

 Thats an entire bottle of it now in the cake. 

Oh well! 

We pour the flour in the bowl and the pressure from the electric whisk send half of it straight back out of the bowl and up the wall. 

Oh well! 

It’s finally all mixed and almost lump free other than a few clumps of cocoa powder. We separate in to muffin cases (and on to the worktop, and in our hair!) and pop in the oven. 

15 minutes later. They are cooking on the rack. I opened the oven after 12 minutes and a few of them have therefore shrunk but all in all, we have 12 cupcakes cooling on the rack and a happy toddler licking the spoon/bowl of cake mix! 

Now. How do we make icing?
  

 Actually. Who needs icing? Let’s dig in!!