Easy-Bake

One of the unrequited loves of my life was the ever longed for, but never attained, Easy-Bake Oven.  Christmas, Birthday, Easter, Arbor Day, any holiday provided the opportunity to hope for my coveted Easy-Bake.  I circled it in every catalog and wrote extensive letters to Santa Clause, grandparents, and Moroccan Prime Minister Ahmed Laraki…anything that would give me an edge and increase my odds of owning that precious baking device.

But despite my duplicitous letters to philanthropic organizations like Make-a-Wish, United Way, and India Foundation for the Arts, my ownership of the illusive Easy-Bake was not to be.  I was doomed to cook in my mother’s double oven utilizing full-size baking pans, and mixing cookies from scratch using the ugly yellow Sunbeam mixer instead of a sweet, pink plastic spoon.  I was truly a figure of deep tragedy.  I mean sure, there was a light bulb in my mom’s oven, but it mocked me.  For in my mother’s second-rate oven the bulb was merely for illumination and did none of the real baking.  Frankly, I found it shameful.

It took me 43 years and two children before my moment finally arrived.  Christmas 2010 was the big year: the year I got my Easy-Bake Oven!  The gift card made the claim it belonged to my daughter, but at long last my home was equipped with an Easy-Bake Oven…our property values soared (and my neighbors are welcome).  My loving fingertips traced around the little pans, fondled the tiny cookie and cake mixes, caressed the long yellow tool used to insert and remove baked goods from the cooking chamber, lingering at long last on the handle of the perfectly pink plastic spoon.  Protected in the gentle grasp of corrugated cardboard was the technologically advanced heating element: the light bulb.  It was with deep reverence that we installed its awesomely powerful yet delicate baking bulb in the tiny oven’s heart.

With eager anticipation my daughter and I embarked on our baking odyssey.  I really tried very hard to let my 7 yr old do most of the mixing on her own, but I had to wield the pink plastic spoon at least once.  It wasn’t exactly ergonomically correct or of a particularly practical design for mixing small amounts of batter, what with its deep bowl and sheer sides, still it was pink.  And to protect my daughter from the fearsome heat of the oven, I took it upon myself to utilize the long yellow tool to push in and pull out the diminutive delicacy.  As the heavenly aroma took over the kitchen my daughter and I giggled with delight and the knowledge that soon we would be dining on manna from heaven.  The moment arrived, we counted to three, and we sank our teeth at long last into the tiny baked sensation together.

My dream realized, I have now come to appreciate my large oven with its adjustable heating element, my white, automatic 4-speed mixer, and my large, shallow-bowled wooden spoon.  Above all I appreciate my ability to bake without a mix thus enabling diners to taste flavors other than hermetically sealed, plastic lined paper envelopes.  Be careful what you ask for ladies and gentlemen…one day it may be yours.