Butter Fingers!

AT LONG BLERRY LAST I am  back in the swing of things after two very painful, exhausting months (which I will not be writing about, so sigh with relief! Only calorie-rich joy will find its way into today's blog post!)

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Layla (with a wee bit of help from moi) made her very first birthday cake yesterday: and discovered the chocolatey bliss of spatula and bowl-licking! Because of the endless curiosity of the Toddler Chef, I opted for Ina Paarman's chocolate cake mix to cut down on our frustration levels. Because? Ok. Picture this: Layla sitting on the kitchen counter within lightning-fast reach of a thousand different ingredients (eggs, milk, vanilla essence, sugar, flower, cocoa, oil, butter...) and being told: 'No, don't touch! No, don't spill it!' And for me and my hating-to-perpetually-say-no parenting approach, I thought: the less ingredients, the better!


What was extremely lekker about using Ina Paarman's mix, besides the minimalism of ingredients, was that I only used a whisk and one mixing bowl! The only additional ingredients were 3 eggs, oil and a cup of hot, black coffee. Lusciously easy! (Saying that, the Ina Paarman's chocolate icing mix was a little more elbow-greasy and messy. The mix comes in a triangular sachet (complete with handy little icing nozzle) --- and then, you need to empty icing powder into a bowl with the butter. I should never have been so lazy to haul the electric beater out... Combining the butter and icing with a wooden spoon --- naggingly impatient toddler asking, 'Is it ready yet, my mama?' at least once every 15 seconds --- did not make for an easy icing experience! Oh yes - and then, you need to spoon the mixture back into the triangular sachet, snip off the tip to the size you want your icing to come out, and then squeeeeeeeze!)
Perhaps the most trying part of it was explaining to Layla - over and over and over and over and over - that we had to wait for Grampa to get home from work before we could tuck into his birthday cake. (*sigh*)

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Anyway - the cake was delicious and moist --- but not nearly as delicious and magnificent as watching Layla sitting on the counter next to Grampa's cake (resplendent in a thousand Smarties), candles aglow, singing 'Happy Birthday' to him!