Baking a "thunder" cake

We have added another Thinking Tree Journal to Alex's fun schooling list. I have to say, I am really loving fun-schooling and these books (if you want to learn more about what "fun-schooling" is you can visit The Thinking Tree books website). 

This actually was supposed to be Aric's book, but he ended up not liking it so I asked Alex if he wanted to work through it. He said "sure." So, here we are! He started The Baker's Fun-Schooling Journal. He's "majoring" in Baking this year for school.

One of my favorite things about these journals is this, they get to choose their own books to learn from! (And we have a better record of the things he's reading)

Alex needs help in this department because he's just not into books, so I put a few books on hold for him to choose from. One of the books I discovered (and thought he'd like) was Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco. He added it to his list of books.

 

I didn't know what this book was about, or even that there was a recipe at the end. I was just looking for books to get him excited about getting in the kitchen. He has not wanted to help bake or cook lately because he felt "he wasn't good at it." Which I have no idea why, but that was his perception, so I looked for picture books mostly because that's what he wants right now.

It was supposed to be a 2-layer cake. One layer didn't make it out of the pan right, so he called it his "off-road" cake.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book was fun to read and it had a recipe at the end. He wasn't sure about trying the recipe at first, but I convinced him we should give it a try. It has a secret ingredient of tomato puree (we used tomato sauce this time). This is what intrigued us!

The recipe was pretty simple, but he still learned some pretty stellar baking lessons.

One of those lessons was mixing egg whites until they become stiff. He thought that was pretty amazing, and didn't know eggs could do that.

This kid wanted to do it all by himself too. I just helped him understand and find things when needed. He did all the work!

The finished product didn't quite come out as planned because the cake didn't release from the pan. Apparently we need to spray these pans more. But, voila! His first homemade from scratch cake!

I think he's a bit more excited about getting in the kitchen after this baking experience. While it was not a complete success, it was successful. He feels a bit more confident in the kitchen, and he got a yummy treat.