Not So Easy Bake Oven

Maddog received an Easy Bake Oven for her birthday last week. Of course she's going to be a little baker like her auntie, right?

I'm all for kids baking and cooking--it's therapeutic, good for the math and science skills, and creates delicious goodness. But Easy Bake Ovens, even though we all wanted one when we were kids, are not very practical.

I know, I know, I sound like a total hater. I'm all for toys. But if you are going to learn to bake, it is not going to be by just adding a tablespoon of water to a packet of mix and "baking" it with a 100W bulb. And what really baffles me is that the 100W bulb has to "preheat" for 15 minutes. I can preheat my real oven in that amount of time! I can just as easily teach Maddog how to bake a real cake. It doesn't require that much more work than boxed cake mix. And at least regular cake mix requires adding some ingredients in addition to water. And you can make enough for the whole family.

I will say, though, that the Easy Bake chocolate chip cookie (singular, as only one can be baked at a time--we had to split it 5 ways) was much better tasting than we expected.