Easy Bake, lots of cake!

I'm trying to remember the exact genesis of this project... We had just baked a big triple-layer lemon cake for friends of ours who are moving to Tuscon, and had some homemade lemon cream cheese frosting leftover. Somehow this conversation with our little neighbors made its way to our old Easy Bake oven (I gave it to Fiona when she was five-- the exact year I received it myself) which they had spied in Fiona's closet, and voila! We were baking up a frenzy. We had a nice assembly line going, plus a craft activity to do during baking down-time that wasn't occupied by dish washing or other tasks. It took us past our bedtimes (oops) but it was rip-roaring good fun.

It reminded me of the times my own mother got out the Easy Bake oven for me while she was getting ready for church bake sales. Those wonderful women at the sales used to put decent prices on paltry little two-layer confections made by my sister and me, and people really snapped them up! I don't know if it was the good cause or the piped frosting that got them. In retrospect, what's really amazing to me about the whole deal is that my own mother, who was ridiculously busy on her own making homemade caramel pecan rolls, pineapple upside-down cakes, sour cream coffee cakes, and strawberry rhubarb pies by the station wagon-load, actually added to her workload by allowing us to drag out the little oven. For me it took coming full circle to even think about that angle. Motherhood really is a blessing, and having a mother who rocks is, too. Thanks for everything, Mom.