Now that we’ve spent a few months studying other countries, one thing that stands out to us all is that some are known (more than others) for their cuisine. After watching Ratatouille, we all became even more curious about how to create your own recipe – so we decided to try it.
We used Jenae from I Can Teach My Child‘s base plan for creating a cake recipe and went from there.
(Basically, you have a group of dry ingredients that you must use – things like flour, sugar, and leavening. Then you choose the liquids, seasonings, and extras and mix it up. There are printable charts on Jenae’s webpage to make it easier.)
My Big Helper chose to use milk, butter, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate chips, and marshmallows.
We compared the ingredient lists with similar cake recipes and used the following:
2 c. flour
2 eggs
2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 c. milk (I’d try 1 1/4 next time)
1/2 c. butter
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
a handful of chocolate chips
a handful of marshmallows, chopped
Stir all dry ingredients together and then add in the wet ones. Stir in the chips and marshmallows at the end and pour into a greased 9X13″ cake pan. Bake at 250 for about 30 minutes or until done.
While the Big Helper asked to do this project, My Little Man soon came running to join in. He suggest using M & Ms when we couldn’t find enough chocolate chips, and both kids were happy to stir the ingredients and watch it bake.
I must admit, I was a bit skeptical about this whole process, but it worked really well. The cake was super moist and tasted pleasantly cinnamon-y. The chocolate fell to the bottom and the marshmallows all rose to the top and roasted, making the top of the cake a pretty, puffy golden brown. If you happened to get a bite of both the chocolate and the marshmallow, it even tasted a bit like a s’more!
We received several surprise visitors in the days following this experiment, and both kids were excited to offer their cake as a refreshment option. I’m sure we’ll be experimenting more with this recipe – and many others – in the future!
If YOU were inventing your own cake, what would you put in it?
