It was the summer of 2018 around lunchtime. It was a hot sunny day, we had all the fans running, pulse the air conditioner on, and I could feel the cool air blowing on my skin, sending a nice chill throughout my body. It was then that I decided that I wanted to bake a cake. So, I asked my mom to let me bake a cake all by myself! I told her that she could watch me bake the cake.

 My mom is good at baking. I had helped and watched her bake a million times, but I wanted to bake this cake all by myself this time. She had agreed to let me bake the cake as I followed one of her most important rules, always ask for help when you need it/! In our house, every time my siblings or I were about to do something, she would add on, “I’m right here, come and ask me for help when you need it.” 

 It even got annoying at some points, because every time we came back from school and chatted a little she would always say her famous quote, and I had that hammer in my head quite clearly that hammer in my head, but I ignored it a bit.

Once I got her full consent I preheated the oven and started to take out the materials, which were flour, eggs, vanilla extract, milk, sugar, butter,  a  pan, and red, orange, yellow, green, and blue little sprinkles. While my mom pulled out the chair from the table to sit and watch me. As I measured the sugar into the mixer my mom got a crucial phone call from her job, so she had to go to the other room, before she left she had turned around and mouthed I’m in the other room. 

   As I watched the batter mix, my nose filled with the smell of the delicious birthday cake batter. It was a vanilla cake batter base along with a mix of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and pink sprinkles.

 Soon after, I turned off the mixer and used my mom's bright red Kitchenaid spatula, which had a broad flat part with a handle attached. I used it to toss the batter a bit to make sure that there weren't any lumps from the flour in the batter. Once I had checked that there weren’t any lumps I put some saran wrap on the mixing bow,l poked holes in it, and left the batter to sit. I did this to let the little air pockets in the batter pop. 

As I left the batter set I decided that I should clean the kitchen a little because there were a lot of spills from making the batter all around the kitchen along with other messes from before. So instead of making my mom clean the mess, I cleaned it for her. Once I was done the kitchen was all sparkly clean. There was no longer any spill from the batter, and not a single dish in the sink, I had put all of the dirty dishes in the sink and the clean dishes back where they belonged. As the sun's rays entered the kitchen I could see the black and golden countertop sparkle.

So I pulled out the cake pan which was in pretty bad shape, all bent with dents everywhere from falling on the ground. My mother had ordered a new cake pan, but it wouldn't come until later. So, I had to work with the cake pan I had. 

As I brought the cake batter to the counter and placed it next to the cake pan, a thought popped up. I didn’t know how much batter to fill the pan up with! I started to worry, I didn’t want to ask my mom for help because she might think I didn’t know how to bake a cake and might not let me bake by myself again, but she also may yell at me for not asking for help. So I had to think. What was I going to do? I thought to myself.

 So I paced around the kitchen thinking and thinking. Then my mom came into the kitchen and asked if I needed help, but I mumbled, “No.” So she sat back on the chair, but this time she turned around and started filling out paperwork. 

After she turned around I got three teaspoons of melted butter, which was awfully hot when I picked it up. Then I  poured the melted butter into the pan and moved the pan in circles so that the butter got on every inch of the pan so that the cake batter wouldn’t stick to the pan. 

At last, the time had come, the part I dreaded, how much batter do I fill the pan with? After tons of worrying and thinking, I decided that I would pour almost all of the batter, but leave a little space. So that's what I did,  I filled the pan with the top and left a five-centimeter gap from the rim of the pan. Then, I placed the pan in the scorching oven, shut the oven door, which was warm,  set a timer for the cake to bake, and left the kitchen to play on my iPad. 

After some time went by I sniffed this very disgusting odor. It was one of the most disgusting smells I have smelt for a while. After a couple more sniffs I realized something was burning! 

My mom rushed to the kitchen, turned off the oven, and ordered me to open the windows so the smoke wouldn’t cause the smoke alarm to go off.

  After I opened the windows I peered from behind my mother to look at the cake that was in the oven. As I saw, the base of the oven had a ton of gooey birthday cake batter. It smelled delicious but burnt at the same time.

 As I saw the cake batter I put so much effort in my eyes filled with tears and as I thought about how my mother might never let me bake by myself again, and how the cake I put so much effort into was causing a disaster, I wanted to cry even more. All I wanted was to run up to my room and cry my heart out, but I knew better so I stayed put.

  Once my mom got things settled down I decided to tell my mom. So as it was the right thing to do I walked up. She was slightly tinted red and pink and had a couple of sweat drops on her face from the heat of the oven, which by the way smelt like burnt toast. Then I told her, “When you were on the phone call I was going to come and ask you to help me because I didn’t know how much batter to fill the pan with, but I was afraid that you would think that I don’t know how to bake, I’m sorry.”

 My mom looked at me like I had a cloud above my head, she didn’t look mad, angry, or upset. She was wiping her face which was no longer red when she sighed and said, “It's okay, things like this happen, just make sure you ask for help next time.” 

Which surprised me more than it should have. I thought she was going to give me a whole speech, but she didn’t! Honestly, it kind of scared me a little, because if I usually did something wrong, my mother would keep giving me speeches until I got It hammered into my head not to do that again.

 After that conversation and surprise, I grabbed my iPad and headed upstairs to my room. I remembered how I had gone upstairs and played one of the baking games to get some practice. 

After a while, I heard my mother holler to me and my two younger siblings to come down. So, I went down and walked downstairs with my head down embarrassed of what I had done. As I walked down I heard my sibling giggling and when I looked up I saw that the bake I baked was all decorated with vanilla frosting and pink sprinkles on the table and my mom was standing near the cake with spoons in her hand. As I approached her she handed me a spoon and told me to dig in, and I did. The cake was absolutely delicious, full of flavor, and perfectly moist. 

As we all were eating, my younger sister opened her mouth full of cake and said, “It may have broken the oven, but it is the best cake I have ever tasted!”And we all laughed.

After that day my mother let me bake a lot. I also made sure to ask for help when I needed it like when it came to measurements and recipes. I also started task help when it came to academics too. I improved a ton, in both academics and baking. Now I’m the best baker in our family, and almost all of my recipes were perfect.