Child’s View of making a Holiday Cake

Christopher’s Thanksgiving turkey 2017

While getting ready to make holiday preparations yesterday I was surprised and filled with joy by a little scrap of paper my son Christopher  and I made 4 years ago. I was busy that Thanksgiving Eve of 2013, getting our holiday deserts ready for the big day. Christopher was in the kitchen with me on a stool mixing the dry ingredients for one of my families favorite cakes, a Southern Style Carrot Cake. I only make the huge cake once or twice a year. The recipe has been passed down from his Grand Mother Powers. While checking the recipe several times to be sure it all the ingredients and instructions were followed, he asked me if he could make a recipe for a cake also. I suggested that after we finished the cake I would help him make a recipe for his very own Christopher Holiday Cake. As the cake baked in the oven I sat with him at our kitchen table and wrote down what it was that he thought in his 5-year-old mind would make a good cake.

Southern Style Carrot Cake.

So with a cute recipe card in hand I wrote down the ingredients for his cake.

The Christopher’s Apple Tomato Carrot Holiday Cake.

• 2 cups of eggs
• 3 cups of flour
• 4 packages of sugar
• 5 tomatoes 
• 5 carrots
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup sliced apple 
• 8 cups vanilla icing 

Then we talked about how he wanted to make his cake like his grandmothers. Mixing everything together with a big spoon and putting it in the oven. He  then told me how we were going to make the cake and I wrote down the following. 

In a large bowl crush eggs with a hammer. 

Mix in flour and sugar packets. 

Put tomato, apples and carrots in microwave and boil them for 7 minutes

blend them into bowl. Pour into pan and bake until done , 14 hours. 

top with icing and pour vinegar over top and eat. 

As I read over the notes I had taken on the recipe card, I was struck with thoughts of  how quickly times change. I was taken back to this Thanksgiving Eve 4 years ago and how small and sweet he was. I thought about how now he could write his own recipe cards and could read most of the directions alone. How he will not need me to help him to make a cake in a year or two. I realized how much this silly little recipe card means to me. To have it fall from my cookbook onto the floor was just the very best thing that happened yesterday. It reminded me why I make that darn cake and how much I love my family. Happy Thanksgiving hope you have a great celebration where ever you are!