Charlie
came home from her skiing trip to Austria with the school on Friday morning,
and I can tell you, we were two very relieved parents. After the tragic accident earlier in the
week involving school children from just over the boarder in Belgium, we had 7
very sleepless nights – but there again we weren’t on our own, everyone else
felt exactly the same.
I’d love to
say she had a wonderful time, but she developed a cough and fever whilst away
which made her feel terrible and homesick, it was such a shame as she had been
so excited, counting the days since last August. Anyway, home she came tired and a little smelly but we were very
pleased to see her anyway. On Friday
Georgia, my other daughter, was sent home from school with the same problem –
great two sick little chicks all weekend.
By Sunday,
Charlie had decided she was feeling better, well enough to bake – does nothing
stops this girl baking? Well yes, actually – The plan was to bake the American
Apple and Apricot Cake however, I forgot to get the Apricots on Saturday and in
Holland NOTHING is open on a Sunday so there was no chance of baking that
cake. (Mistake No1) The wrath of
slightly sick, over tired, hormonal, baking deprived 10 year old is quite
impressive unless you are on the receiving end which of course, I was. I suggested “hey lets just do the next cake
and do that one next time” Not a chance, we are doing the book in order and
that is that. “Okay, how about you bake
something else” I suggested, “maybe try some cupcakes on your own?” A look of pure delight spread across her
face and I was ushered from the Kitchen. (mistake No2)
About 20
minutes later, she came to find me. “it
doesn’t look quite right, can you come and have a look” What could have possibly gone wrong I
thought, how do you go wrong? The bomb
site that was my lovely kitchen was a little surprising, but the gloop in the
bowl was a real shocker! "What did you
do?" I asked “What it said to do!” She answered indignantly “Okay (deep breath)
step by step what did you do?”
She had
decided as there were 17 people in her class she would double the recipe so
“creamed” the butter and sugar, added flour, vanilla, and then the eggs. That’s all very well if you have a mixer
that can cope with this amount of ingredients, but we don’t - you cannot mix it
together in that order, you end up with a concrete gloop stuck to your whisk
(apparently) not to mention up your walls and on the windows! (deep deep
breath).
Begin
again, but first darling, wash up and get that off my wall please! (yet another
deep breath but this time accompanied with a forced smile)
So, she
started from scratch. This time,
creamed butter and sugar, added the eggs and some milk with a tsp of vanilla.
She then sifted the flour and baking powder into the egg mix and used the hand
whisk (in the sink so it doesn’t go up my walls) and ended up with a lovely
smooth batter. Hoorah!
She decorated them with buttercream and sprinkles
– I think they looked cute. She was
very pleased with herself and I was very pleased to have the kitchen back
relatively in one piece. Next time I’ll remember the Apricots!
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