School holidays are over - Yay!

I am counting down the hours until my sweet, adorable children go back to school.

I can say for sure I am not one of those mothers that looks forward to those 2 weeks each term of having children to occupy 24/7. My kids are not the kind of kids that like to veg in front of the T.V or play solo for hours and hours — they like hard core entertainment — friends for sleepovers and pretty much constant attention from us(this is 100% our own fault, if only we’d ignored them when they were small and left them to their own devices they’d probably be quite good at self entertainment)!

 

Anyway enough bitching and moaning…

Today somehow I got roped into baking with them.

You might think I do lots of cooking with my kids — well you’d be wrong! I’m like the kitchen Nazi – this is my space and nobody is to step foot in it or mess with me while I’m in it!

And whoever said cooking with kids was relaxing?

 

Jemima, her friend Jess and Frank searched through the hundreds of cookbooks that I own and found the recipe they wanted to bake 

‘Red Velvet Cake’.

 

Jemima rings me to tell me what to pick up…”Mum,we need red food colouring” and I’m like, “Over my dead body!”I’ve secretly been wanting to make ‘Red velvet cupcakes’ since our trip to L.A but refused to use red food colouring (I do not need another excuse for my kids to be any more mental than they already are) so we are using beetroot to colour them.

 

Here we go, wish me luck! This recipe is from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook — adjusted just slightly by me.

 

The dialogue whilst baking went something like this….

Me: Everyone go wash your hands.

Kids: Ok mummy (with a tone of sarcasm from my eldest)

Me: Alright lets cook our beetroot, so its ready to use (we could have just juiced our beetroot — next time that’s what I’ll do)

 

Me: Ok lets measure out our ingredients so we’ve got everything ready to go.

Kids:(except Jessica)

Frank: “I wanna go first”

Jemima:”No, I want to go first”

Me: Everyone will get a turn.

Kids:(except Jess)“Your always first”. “No I’m not” — “Mum, it's not fair she’s always first”……

Me:(losing my shit)This is never happening again, cooking with you two is like poking my eyes out !

Me: Sorry Jess – Girls stop fighting or that’s it, cooking’s over!

Wilco: MUM!, MUM!, MUM! MUM!, MUM!, MUM! MUM!, MUM!, MUM!

Me:Great,the babies awake!

Wilco: I do it!, I do it! (sticking his fingers in sugar, flour and then in his mouth) My turn!, MY TURN! (screaming and crying) WHAAAAAAA, WHAAAAAAAA!!!!!(It was a bad day for my usually calm son)

Me:(Praying)…Let this be over — something happen so this is over!!!

Jess: (Thinking to herself)“HELP! get me out of this mad house and away from these crazy people, I want to go home to my nice calm family!”

 

I could keep this dialogue going but really we got through it — finally. Making cakes has never taken this long before, but the kids had fun — even with me threatening murder.The best part(for them)I believe was filling their own cases and licking the bowl.

 

Then the mess was left for me to clean up. And maybe, just maybe I can sit for a split second and have a cup of tea?

Jemima: MUM!!! We're hungry!!

The count down is on 1 more sleep and their back to school !! Yay!!

The Recipe as is in:

'More from Magnolia'

+ my alterations:

This recipe is for a cake but I made 24 cupcakes with it.

3½ cups of plain flour

    1 teaspoon of baking powder (my       addition)

180g unsalted butter softened

2 cups of sugar

3 large eggs

120ml of beetroot juice (my addition)

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1½ teaspoons of vanilla

1½ teaspoons of salt

3/4 cup of whole milk (my addition)

3/4 cup of plain yogurt (my addition)

1½ teaspoons of apple cider vinegar

1½ teaspoon baking soda (bi-carb)

 

Cream cheese frosting/Icing:

½ a tub of Quark (European cottage style cheese)

½ a small lemon juiced

icing sugar till you get the consistency you like for your icing

Coconut flakes (preservative free) toasted in a pan till golden

 

      This is how you make them

all I did differently was *added the beetroot juice instead of the colouring * used less sugar *Didn't have buttermilk (so I made my own) * would have added a teaspoon of baking powder with the flour *And made a way healthier 'icing'

©Michelle Schoeps 2013

All photos taken by Michelle Schoeps
 mess by my rug rats - recipe adapted from 'Red Velvet Cake' from More from Magnolia by Allysa Torey


p.s I really do adore each and everyone of my children and wouldn't change anything about them for anything in the world - I'd just love it if they whispered occasionally!