Where we bake a Thunder Cake

I would much rather read a book or bake a cake than watch a movie or a T.V show.


That probably makes me a nerd.  I am okay with that.



Delicious cakes and Neil Gaiman short stories trump Jersey Shore or Teen Mom marathons.  Every time.

I just can't get into reality television. Not even American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.




I know. I can already hear your gasps of disbelief.




Plus, what shows that I consider good always get cancelled because they don't star Paris Hilton or people who collect cats.

So I read and bake bread.  And occasionally watch re-runs of Arrested Development.



My daughter has reached one of those "perfect" reading ages. She is just now starting to appreciate books with more words and fewer pictures. This opens up a whole new world of reading material.  This makes for a very excited mama and daddy.

A few days ago I shared a book from my childhood with her.  It is always a fun game to see if she loves these books as much as I did at her age.  Usually she does and it brings me a special kind of joy to finish a book and hear her say, "read it again." Or watch her go through her entire stack of library books to find it.


This was the case with Patricia Polacco's Thunder Cake.

Every time it storms I think about this book. I think about my Grandmother's house and how she wouldn't ever let us be afraid of anything. I remember baking in her kitchen and her pouring sizable portions of the raw cake batter for us to eat. It brings images of fresh eggs cooking and the taste of raw biscuit dough. I think about stories before we went to bed around the fireplace all wrapped up in handmade blankets eating marshmallows we cooked.

While I was pregnant my mother gave me our copy of the book. My aunt bought me a copy.  This book is special to many of us. I think it probably reminds most country people of their childhoods on the farm.

So, you can imagine my excitement when A. James asked to make "thunder cake" one morning.

We read the book as we baked the cake. Stopping to "gather ingredients" along with the characters.  We talked about how one day we will have a farm and we will go outside to gather eggs from our chickens, or milk our cow. 


We talked about how grandmas are important and who we wanted to share our cake with when it was finished.


It was fun; we will do it again in the summer so we can actually gather eggs and tomatoes instead of getting them from the fridge.  The recipe is in the back of the book, but you can visit Patricia Polacco's website for the recipe as well.


Enjoy!