Mixture

With Christmas just over, and my belly arriving everywhere a good ten seconds ahead of the rest of me, it’s easy to see the evil that is cake! Everyone will tell you that I have an extremely sweet tooth and have a stronger addiction to chocolate cake than would be possible with any other recreational substance. But recently I also rediscovered the joy of baking them yourself.

Kids love to make a mess and mine are no exception. So the idea of chucking around flour, eggs and milk and then finally eating it is one that none of us could say no to. A Sunday afternoon can now pass for the three of us in the joyful whirlwind of sieving, cracking, whisking, melting and baking (although the inevitable wiping, washing and mopping are always a solo turn on my part).  We currently have two signature dishes; a lemon drizzle cake which practically dissolves of its own fruition and a chocolate cake (what a surprise) whose ingredients should entitle me to a seat on the board at Cadbury.

I can remember doing the same thing with my mum as a child but with one big difference – licking the spoon! This was always the Holy Grail of the make and bake, the blissful bit that came between the mess-fest and the concluding consumption. When the cake had been transferred from mixing bowl to tin my sister and I would jostle to be the first at what was left over. Scraping and gathering every last bit of the sugary mixture and then finally licking it from the wooden spoon which to a child was like something from a giant’s table. Forget the goose with the golden eggs and the singing harp here was the giant’s true treasure.

But, alas, this is no longer the case - thanks to Edwina Currie! Though it was decades ago the seed she sowed lives on. Due to fear of salmonella parents would rather see their child and a stranger playing catch in the road with a rusty knife than come within a mile of a raw egg!

And yet somehow, having never experienced it, they still feel drawn to the bowl. Somehow, instinctively they know it would be a taste sensation. But I’m a victim of society, living in fear of the ‘raw egg police’ who pounce on those that practice a combination of spoon licking and bad parenting. So despite their pleas and moans I deny my children their rightful reward. With a sigh they slip away to find alternative distractions until the cake is ready, while I condemn the true treasure of baking to the sink of sadness…