Baking with Boys

 

Ah, it's always an adventure when I invite my little brothers (aged 10 and 5) to bake with me.

The occasion? Our cousin Art's birthday is on Monday.  I can't remember how old he'll be, mid-twenties I'm guessing considering he's a recent college graduate.  Anyway, my brothers absolutely love it when he comes to visit (he lives in Florida) because they love to talk about alien movies and army men toys and computer games and all that other cool guy stuff that their older sisters care nothing about.

I'm not sure who suggested that I make him a cake for his birthday (Mom? Grandpa? I don't know), but I was happy to comply and thought that my brothers would enjoy helping too...

And they did love to help.  Adam decided to make a mission of it, and they brought in the Army Men toys (even this one) to serve as guards for our base, and Adam was Master Chief (which I think is a Halo reference) and/or the Cake Helping Ninja, depending on who asked.  James joined in on the fun, and since he's older, I gave him a few more tasks.  For example, I knew Adam could pour the sugar into the mixer, but James would be able to handle cracking four eggs.

Well, about that.  It turns out that he has an 80% success rate as far as egg-cracking goes.  Four out of the five eggs he cracked landed in the bowl.  The other egg?  It went splat all over the table top.  Never fear, we cleaned it up between ginormous fits of giggling and squealing "ewwww."  Like I said, it's an adventure.

The cake is in the oven right now, and tomorrow I'll decorate it.  Since we have family coming into town this weekend, there will be plenty of people to party it up on Monday (which is a holiday, of course).  I'm thinking about making a crocodile theme, since there are apparently plenty of gators down in Florida (we've heard many stories about a gator named Limb who, I believe, lives in a retition pond in front of Wal-Mart.)  Hopefully, my fondant-sculpting skills have not dryed out since the last time I used them.