Emma and Chocolate Cake

This afternoon Emma wanted a handful of chocolate chips. This is something I have tried to discourage--eating chocolate chips. Not because they aren't delicious, but because with 4 kids, if everyone gets in the habit of having a handful of chocolate chips when there's nothing sweet around the house, I go to bake something and have none left! So in order to distract her, I suggested baking instead.

I thought the kids would want cupcakes--they love the individual size, gobs of frosting, and the fact that we generally put sprinkles on them doesn't hurt, either! To my surprise, however, they all agreed they wanted a big cake. Chocolate cake. Since they wanted my special chocolate picnic cake, that meant that there would be no buttercream frosting, though--it's such a moist cake that it's impossible to spread frosting on it. I usually choose whipped cream or chocolate ganache for it. Or ice cream, but we had none of that. Off to the kitchen we went.

Time for the next surprise. Since Julia, Ben and Emma were all in on the decision making process, I thought I would have three kitchen helpers to make this cake. Aside: I love cooking with my kids, but having three of them "help" is really less help than you might think. Really, it's more of one long, drawn-out argument over who does this, who breaks eggs, who got to help more, etc. till I want to scream. But lucky me! Ben had already planned to go into the yard with his bow and arrows, and Julia was in the middle of making a pigeon comic. So only Emma was there to help.

She is so sweet! So serious, standing on the step stool, peering into the bowl, talking about how delicious the cake would be. We did the dry ingredients first, and when I poured the oil, milk and coffee onto them, the cocoa changed color from getting wet. "Oh!" she cried, "The cocoa is turning black, Mom!" in this worried little voice. She took a deep sniff over the bowl and pronounced it perfect, and she got chocolate all over her little face, licking the beater. After it went into the oven, she asked about every three minutes when it would be done. I asked her if she'd heard the timer on the oven ring yet. She thought a minute, then said, "No! I guess that's supposed to mean it isn't done yet, then...."

By the way, the cake was perfect after dinner with fresh whipped cream. Emma is definitely going to be another baker...

Jen