Baking Together

For the first time, I tried baking a cake with Ava tonight. It was a diversion while Greg was in language study in the living room. It was garbanzo bean chocolate cake (kind of a flourless chocolate cake) and it mainly involves a food processor, which I invested in today and have been frequently sighing a huge breath of relief because it's so helpful. I plan to try grinding rice and almonds into flour in it and see if that works.

Anyway, I digress. I started with having Ava fill up a measuring cup with chickpeas that I'd already soaked and cooked and dumping into the food processor. She wanted to keep filling the food processor with more chickpeas than needed so I whisked the chickpeas away. Next, it was time to add eggs. I cracked and dropped one in and gave the second to Ava. I told her to tap the egg on one side of the processor to crack the egg but she simply squeezed it until the egg broke and spewed out. Not half bad. I had to fish out a piece of eggshell but no biggie. Ava did the same thing with the third. Then, it was time to process the mixture. Ava had seen me use the processor earlier in the day so she was game to turn on the processor. That was the first and last time. As soon as the processor started, she disappeared in a blink of an eye. Loud noises still scare her. She kept disappearing when the processor was turned on. We added sugar (I scooped the sugar out and handed it to her to pour into the processor) and baking powder. As I turned to put away the sugar, I kept saying over and over, "Don't touch it, Ava" as she stood staring at the white stuff on top of the chickpea mixture with her hand hovering over it. I knew she badly wanted the tactile experience of sinking her hands into grit and goo - and I can hardly blame her.

Next, it was time to break up bitter chocolate bars (in lieu of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which isn't to be found here). I wasn't sure Ava would help; I figured I'd have to do battle with her to keep her from gobbling it down but she actually helped. It was hard work for her since her little hands could hardly break the bars up.

With the chocolate all broken up, we melted the chocolate in the microwave. It was a good science lesson about how solids melt into a semi-solid state. "Melt" has been added to her vocabulary. Now, this was where she couldn't resist - warm, gooey chocolatey decadence with an aroma to tantalize the nose. Pretty soon, she had chocolate smeared all over her mouth, face, and hands as she helped me stir the chocolate and pour it into the processor with the mixture. I wish I'd taken a picture but I had my hands full, as you might guess, with keeping my preschooler from drowning herself in the melted chocolate.

After blending the chocolate into the chickpea mixture (and my baking assistant disappearing on me), it was time to grease the pan and pour the batter in. Ava reappeared and greased the pan with a hunk of butter perfectly. She "helped" me pour the batter (she held onto the spatula with my hand to guide her in scooping out the batter) and spread it.

I was trying not to limit her fun too much just because I didn't want to inconvenience of cleaning up the mess. Chocolate was smeared all over the counters and all over Ava. I kept wiping her down and then thought it was pointless until the baking was done.

Overall, it was fun but I definitely need to relax more and allow her to make messes for the sheer fun of it. Ava enjoys being a helper so she was more than cooperative. The cake turned out delicious and didn't taste like garbanzo beans at all.

There you go - Ava's first job as a baking assistant!