If I want to be honest, I am kind of lazy. In the summer, not so much as I prefer to get outdoors and enjoy the warm weather for three months but otherwise, I have found recently that I want to do as little movement as possible. Can I blame someone? I blame my job. OK done.
I am always trying to think of easy yet fun activities that my kids can be very engaged in. With them being so young, I figured they’d be interested with everything there was in front of them for only a few minutes and the fun was over so I figured, since they like messes, I would just try some simple baking with them that was fun and that I didn’t have to keep lying around the house.
I already had cupcake tins so no need to purchase others but there are cheap ones at the Dollar store. The Dollar store also has cake mix and icing but didn’t see any food coloring or sprinkles at either of the ones I went to so I headed over to No Frills to grab some which were on sale. BONUS!
At first, I was freaking out. These kids are going to get this all over the hardwood floor! But I digressed and let the impending mess happen.
I would crack the egg and allow her to pull it open and drop the egg in; something she’s been wanting to do for a while. A great bonus is that no egg shells were dropped in the making of these cupcakes. She filled up the measuring cup with water which was absolutely spilled all over the floor but thankfully poured the vegetable oil into the cup with just a bit of overflow.
Once all the hard work was done, this is where my panic stepped in. Stirring powder, oil and eggs in a bowl was just a recipe for disaster and knowing that my three year old was super stoked to get involved in the stirring, I should be prepared with the mop and bucket. But I really wanted to let go of my anxiety about this and messes when it comes to the kids having fun sooooo I let it go and watched as they stirred then added food colouring to four batches.
My son mixed only the blue and wouldn’t let anyone else touch his colour and Kinsley and I mixed some colour to make orange, red and purple.
So that didn’t turn out as bad as I thought so I left it go and let them really have fun; or did I? Once she had finally gotten all of the cupcake liners in, I told her what was required to do in order to see the cool layers once it was baked. Not thinking about the fact that my son was right beside us and of course wanting to join in all the fun. As we start to layer them, I find myself getting anxious seeing the cake mix making designs all over the cupcake pan but instead of freaking out, I just went with it. Of course Kylan was helping but he would take out the liners and put them on the table and fill them with just blue. I knew they were heading for the garbage bin shortly so let him have at it.
After the baking was done, now was for the real fun! ICING AND SPRINKLES! Of course, It’s not a true cupcake making experience if you don’t eat some of the icing while you’re making then and Kylan made sure he did that. He actually ate a lot more icing than his cupcake received.
But alas….the final cupcakes (except his) came out wondrous and I ate 4 but the kids ate none.
Go figure – so the rest went into the garbage as neither of my kids eat anything except the icing from any cupcake that they had. I also had nowhere to put them so it turned out well for everyone.
A great thing about this was that it was 1.5 hours of fun and if I want to do it again I can use the remaining icing and still have plenty of sprinkles let over for another occasion like tonight’s Easter decorating cookie adventure which will also end up in the garbage. 😀
I See Zen People 