Men in the kitchen

The average male, I'm sure most of you will agree, don't do kitchens.  Yeah, RMan is very good - we take turns (more or less) at washing up the day's dishes after our evening meal.

But cooking?

Nope.  RMan will make a scrambled egg, or boiled egg, or allow spitting grease from the frying pan when he cooks his weekly chunk of red flesh (steak normally) to fly everywhere.

Make a salad.  Not bloody likely!  He's more into getting his greens from the green coloured bottle that houses his liquid refreshment (which made from hops which he thus considers to be a vegetable).  The only time he'll eat a salad is if it is diced into small pieces a lá an Israeli salad (why is it called an Israeli salad?)

Alternatively, winter cooked greens will be wolfed down providing he can't actually make out what it is - like a broccoli, pumpkin or pea soup.  Again, there is a caveat - the soup must be accompanied by some sliced wurstchen which is scattered into his soup.

Or, unless the veggies are smothered in a cheese sauce - as in broccoli or cauliflower cheese.

The only veg he will eat happily is carrots which have an added a pat of butter and honey. 

Be that as it may.

Our grandson, Mike, came to stay with us for the Easter school holidays.

Months ago - I kid you not - RMan was with me in the supermarket when we made our weekly shop.  He went wandering off (which is a relief) and eventually arrived back with a box in his hands.  When I enquired what it was he showed me - a box of chocolate cake mix.  Yuck!  There is no accounting for males taste, is there?!?

It turns out he bought it so that the next time Mike came to stay the two of them could make a cake together.

Serendipitously, Mikes visit coincided with our totally out of season March snowfall on the higher peaks of the mountains, which, just because it sounded like cold weather, meant that we lit the Rosie that night.

After dinner I heard rumblings in the ranks.  The men wanted pudding.

Nope - I wasn't in the mood, and couldn't be bothered to start going through recipes looking for something to fulfill their sweet tooth requirements.

Until I remembered the chocolate cake mix that RMan had purchased all those months ago.

Digging it out of my under-the-stairs pantry, I handed it over to both of them.  And left them to it.  Literally.

Cake icing can hide a multitude of sins, can't it :)

This is the result.

Thank goodness icing hides imperfections lol

Don't look to closely - you'll see the raw dough
 at the bottom of the cake

Naturally, because they made it, it tasted outstanding.  Even if it was a tad doughy inside.  It made no difference.  The cake was wiped in it's entirety!!

And, they cleaned the kitchen afterwards!!  (it's surprising how much mess a box of cake mix can make, isn't it?  Thank goodness they didn't get into my containers of flour, sugar, etc...)

Actually, it wasn't bad.  And considering it was their first joint baking session I think they did themselves proud.

They had fun too :)

But, that still doesn't solve the veggie consumption issue...