Seven years have passed since I "retired" from my previous life of teaching kindergarten. But I still remember reading the book, "Thunder Cake", to my class. When I saw it at the library a few weeks ago I thought I should snag it and read it to my ever-present and growing "class". The timing was perfect when a stormy and thunder-full afternoon rolled into our week. We snuggled up and read "Thunder Cake"...and then we had a whole lotta fun. While it thundered and poured we emptied the pantry and made a fabulous mess in the kitchen. Instead of tears about the loud thunder they were counting between flashes and crashes and giggling with excitement and anticipation until the cake was in the oven.
Now, the book provides a recipe for thunder cake that we faithfully followed...all the way down to the tomato puree. But there was no frosting recipe so we used
this one from my favorite recipe website...Delish. I didn't take ANY pics of our giant mess as we were having too much fun to remember a detail like that! If you use your imagination I'm sure you'll get a good picture in your head of every bowl and measuring utensil I own either covered in chocolate or cleaned well by little tongues and faces. If you think really hard, you can see flour and sugar and cocoa trails on the counters, floors, and most everywhere.
This is a sweet book turning a scary afternoon into a courageous adventure. And, I think my kids have a little less fear now when the afternoon storms roll in.
