Mrs. Peters’ Birthday Cake: The True Story

So, last week I posted this fun Book and a Big Idea thing where we made Mrs. Peters' birthday cake to go-along with a book that makes us laugh–The Seven Silly Eaters.

I think my readers deserve a behind-the-scenes look at what actually happened that day. The day we made cake.

I woke up Sunday morning, July 7, and remembered I signed up for a blog hop with a post due on July 8. {This is what happens to those who don't keep calendars.}

I found a recipe online, before church, for pink lemonade cake that does not include any artificial ingredients.

Elijah wondered what I was doing, and I gave a short explanation.

"Mom, does this mean we have have to smile with our cake so you can snap a picture before we eat it?"

I answered with an affirmative, "Yes, yes, and yes, son," and secretly wondered what kinds of special therapy blogger-kids are going to need as adults.

After church, we dropped the boys off at grandma's house, so Jason and I could go on a date. I informed Jason the last half of our date would be spent at the grocery store with me buying ingredients for pink lemonade cake so I could write a blog post. He was super excited.

I couldn't find red raspberries at the store because grandma lives in a tiny town. Finally found them. Almost knocked a little old lady down before she grabbed my red raspberries. Not my best moment.

Located lemon extract. $5. Jason pointed to the canned pink frosting and accused, "You know you want to." Refusing to feed my kids polyglycerol esters, I stuck with my raspberries and lemon extract.

Spent $14 and left the store.

Got boys.

Went home. 

Jason and Simon decided to go on a bike ride. I realized the block of cream cheese in my fridge ran away. Asked Jason and Simon to ride to the teeny store in our tiny town to get some cream cheese.

Insert a few hours. Butter and cream cheese were room temperature. Time to bake a cake.

"Simon, want to help me bake a cake?" in my OH-MY-GOODNESS this is going to be SO-MUCH-FUN voice.

Simon, "No." 

Hmm. Elijah is half-sick (headache and hot–probably from some polyglycerol esters in the food he ate with grandma.)

Put on sweet-and-a-little-bit-desperate voice, "Elijah, would you like to help me make a cake?" 

Sure. 

Whew. Now I have a kid for pictures. 

And out-takes. Lots of out-takes.

Between the mixing and stirring and juicing Elijah kept bringing up Mrs. Peters' birthday cake. 

"Mom, where's the applesauce? It has applesauce in it." 

"Ours doesn't. This is just a spin-off. Just an idea similar to Mrs. Peters' birthday cake."

After my speech I pull out the cupcake pan. 

Elijah screeches, "WHAT? Mom, Mrs. Peters' cake is big. It's a big cake. We can't have cupcakes."

Oh, but we can, son. Oh, but we are. 

I, without thinking, quickly mentioned, "Simon can help with the frosting, so you can go back to reading, if you want."

"Frosting? Mom, there isn't any frosting in the story."

I tried not to roll my eyes, and instead I gave him my wide-eye-stop-it-now-please look. My kids know this look.

He walked off to wash butter off his hands from greasing the cupcake pan, and I set it to the side.

Simon comes in and peeked into the batter bowl. "Mom, is there dough in there? Becase, you know, there is bread dough in Mrs. Peters' birthday cake?"

Is this really happening? Who read this book to my kids a zillion times? Do they have the recipe memorized for crying out loud?

I ran through my "this is just a spin-off" speech and pulled the muffin pan over to start filling it. Simon interrupted, "CUPCAKES? You are making cupcakes?"  

I told Simon to show me how he felt about cupcakes, and this is what he did:

I may or may not have felt like Mrs. Peters at this point. You know the picture.

I spent about 32 minutes searching for the book. I have a great husband who found it on YouTube. (It is possible that we gathered round the laptop while eating our cupcakes.)

Then I frosted the cupcakes. I normally just throw all my frosting in a Ziploc and cut a hole and swirl round and round the cake top. In the middle of the swirling, for the first time ever, the bag popped. I meal KABOOM. A pile of frosting.

Okay, so maybe my cupcakes weren't Pintastic. 

At least I got two blog posts out of one. 

Keeping it real,

Ami