The kids made the chocolate cake from a box, pretty much entirely on their own, and having a lot of fun doing it. Well, I sprayed the inside of the pan with Baker’s Joy, because you have to push the spray thing a little harder than is comfortable for Kavi. It’s funny the things that are still surprisingly hard for her — often not what I’d expect. They did everything else, though, including dropping an egg on the floor and cleaning it up.
We then did a sort of improvised cake toppings bar. I took some frozen berries, cooked them down with the leftover champagne from the morning’s garden club mimosas, a few squeezes of lime juice, brown sugar, and some crystallized ginger, to make a gingered-berry-champagne compote. I also melted some chocolate chips (a couple minutes at half power in the microwave), set some of it aside for the kids, and stirred in some chili powder and salt to what was left to make a salted spicy chocolate sauce. Then set those out along with some ready-made frosting and sprinkles, so that everyone could have cake the way they liked it.
The box cake was still a little fluffy and light for my tastes — I like my chocolate cake to be denser. But the flavors were delicious, Kevin agreed, and the kids were happy with their version too (heavy on the frosting and sprinkles), so I’d call it a pretty decent success for birthday-cake-from-what-we-have-on-hand-because-we-are-too-lazy-to-go-to-the-store.
