M's Big Day

At the ripe old age of exactly nine years and nine months, M had her first sleepover.

At the precocious age of exactly nine years and nine months, M baked her first chocolate cake.

Both endeavors succeeded brilliantly. The sleepover involved popcorn, Olympics, much giggling in the guest bed (ok, guest futon on the floor), a few maternal exhortations to sleep, and popovers for breakfast. As for the cake, she and G, her sleepover partner in crime, did everything from picking the recipe (All-American Chocolate Torte* from The Cake Bible) to buying cream for the glaze at the corner store--all I did was boil the water, pour it, put the cake in the oven, and take it out (ok, I also made the glaze, but she and G decorated it with sprinkles and sugar violets!).

All very exciting.

* G's grandmother and I puzzled over why this was a torte. I thought tortes were denser than cakes; she thought they involved layers and custard. Either way, this one seemed a lot like a cake to me, and S says there is no difference, but there must be because the book also has an All-American Chocolate Butter Cake, though I don't remember it being so different from the Torte. Apparently Rose Levy Berenbaum's vision of torte is quite cake-like.