On Why The Cake Was Crunchy

            The twins, Martha and Emma, are 10 years old now and are beginning to learn how to bake.  Emma got an Easy-Bake Oven from Grandma at Christmas.  She was thrilled, and made a multitude of mini delectables. When we got the factory recall in the mail, she decided to “hurry up and finish the recipes.”  Probably sensing that the Easy-Bake Oven was not destined to remain in our house for long.

            Soon after, with newfound confidence in her baking abilities, and even greater confidence from the sheer presence of her twin in the kitchen, Emma decided that she and Martha were ready to graduate to real baking.

            Geoff and I were midway through replacing a screen door upstairs when Emma came up to ask if she could bake a cake.  A real cake.

            I hesitated.

            She immediately defaulted to her prepared arguments.  She whipped the cake mix from behind her back, explaining how the directions were pretty similar to the many 3-inch cakes she had already made in her oven.

            “I can do this, Mom,” she argued convincingly.

            Still I hesitated.  But when my mind momentarily reverted back to the screen, I gave a half-hearted okay.

            Seconds later, Martha appeared in our room asking about making a cake.  I explained that I had already given permission. She ran downstairs, ecstatic. Which should have tipped me off.

            She appeared a second time with a cake mix in each hand.  She asked which one I thought she ought to make.  I said that I thought Emma already had one.  And that’s when I finally got the picture. They were each planning on making a cake.  I explained that, no, I had given the okay for two bakers, one cake.  With only a minor argument, she returned downstairs to the kitchen to bake the cake with Emma.

            That evening, they asked if I’d make some frosting for their cake.  I agreed, and mixed up some frosting, leaving them to stir it, and frost their cake.

            It was later that night when they very proudly, and somewhat ceremoniously, served pieces of their cake to everyone in the family that I learned a little more about how the baking process had gone.

            Taking his first bite of his little sisters’ first real cake, 12-year-old Ben remarked enthusiastically, “Hey, this cake is crunchy!  It’s pretty good!  Mom’s cakes are never crunchy!”

            I was silently accepting the compliment, though I knew it wasn’t really meant that way.  And though I wasn’t having a piece of cake myself, I did find myself curious about the crunchiness.

            “Oh, that’s ‘cause I kinda heard the timer go off, but I thought I was just hearing it in my mind,” Emma offered.  “It had to go off for a couple of minutes before I said to myself, ‘Emma, is that really the buzzer, or am I just thinking it’s the buzzer?’  Then someone else said, ‘Hey Emma, isn’t that your cake buzzer?’  So I went to check and it really was the buzzer going off.  So it mighta got a little burned on the bottom.”

            I stared at her in fascination.  She looked over at me, checking to make sure that I’d heard her explanation.  And not wanting to draw attention to my fascination, I simply nodded silently, acknowledging that I’d heard.  And understood.  As much as anyone else could have possibly understood.  And wondered if ever there was a time when I heard a buzzer, but only in my head, until someone else told me that my buzzer was going off, and then I realized that it wasn’t just buzzing in my head.  Nope, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that.

            “Hey Mom,” Martha interrupted my thought process.  “Up in the tall cupboard which one is the oil and which one is the vigenar?”

            “You mean vinegar?” I clarified.

            “Yeah,” she said, “which one is the vinegar?  Is it the round one, or the squarish one?”

            I explained that the round one was the vinegar.  Why?

            “Well, I think when I was puttin’ the oil in I might’a accidentally put vigenar in instead.  I wasn’t sure which one was oil.  Neither of them said ‘oil’ on them.  One started with a A and one started with a C.”

            That would be apple cider vinegar, and canola oil.  I explained that the C one would have been correct.

            “Oh,” she said.  Then paused to take another bite of cake.

            I sat watching her.  Waiting for her verdict.

            She swallowed.  “Then I’m pretty sure I put in the vigenar.”

            She smiled.  I nodded again.

            “So, maybe that’s why the cake is sorta crunchy,” she added.

            Hard to say.

            The kids all finished their pieces of cake.  Each complimenting the twins on the cake they had baked, and wondering when they would be making another.

            Marthy and Emmy, equally confident in their cake-baking abilities, and now with a success under their belts, basked in the appreciation of their older siblings.  And even though the Easy-Bake Oven was now in the garbage, having been recalled by the manufacturer, the girls were ready for the real world.

            And somewhere along the line, be it the buzzer which was mistaken for an auditory hallucination, or the last minute substitution of vinegar instead of oil, Martha and Emma had invented cake with a twist.  Even though the possibility still exists that the crunchiness came from something else entirely.  At this point in time, that’s all we know.  On why the cake was crunchy.