Simple Baking Lessons

For Christmas, I gave Alakina an Easy Bake Oven. She is now 4 and every time she comes to my house she wants to cook...so it was a no-brainer for me!

Easy Bake Ovens came out in 1963...I remember well seeing the commercial on TV and so desperately wanting one just knowing that I would become a "master baker" if I could only have one of these precious little appliances of my very own...I would have to wait until Christmas and HOPE that I was good enough to receive one...I was, and I did!!

Miss Ali has never asked for one...maybe she had never seen it advertised and just plain didn't know about them. I don't think she even knew the "power" it held until a few days after Christmas when I had her bring it over to my house.

We decided to make the white cake with chocolate frosting that came with the kit. I let her do it all...she opened the package, dumped it in the bowl (I measured the water) she added it to the mix and she did all the stirring...I even let her spray the "Pam" into the tiny pan. She was SO proud and loved each moment of creating her very own little cake.

She placed it into the oven and let it "bake"...(it's heated by a 100w light bulb) and the waiting was torture for her. After a few minutes, it was done and she popped it out...It was torture for her to wait for it to cool enough to frost and eat, but she was a trooper and she survived. She mixed the frosting...it was a bit lumpy, but I controlled my urge to take control and just let her do it her way. She frosted it then GLADLY shared it with her little sister (I opted out and let them devour the 1st creation).

It was the MOST beautiful cake she had ever seen!! I was so touched to see this precious *little* of mine become a little closer to womanhood as she learned some basic cooking skills that day. She didn't see it as any kind of "chore" she just loved every moment of the experience. When all was said and done, I even let her clean-up! After all, that's part of real life. She loved it and didn't see it as anything other than part of the entire experience of baking.

The joy on the faces of those 2 little girls that day taught me a simple lesson of finding joy in all that we do. What we as adult women can tend to look at as "drudgery" or "duty" is really a blessing of creativity and fun if we change our perspective. I have always loved to bake. But now I look at it as a blessing of being able to create something lovely to share with others. It inspires me to bake more often and challenge myself with new and different recipes. Silly, I know, but it's true. So I thank my precious Ali for allowing me to be a part of her very first Easy Bake experience. I relived one of my childhood passions and will never forget the pride and joy on her face that day!