The Just Desserts Club
Page 5
When the students returned to their seats after lunch, Zoe raised her hand. “May I please be excused?” she asked.
“Zoe, why didn’t you go to the girls’ room during the lunch break?” asked Mrs. Cheechia.
Zoe just shrugged her shoulders.
Mrs. Cheechia sighed and handed her the pass to leave the room. When Zoe returned a few minutes later, she was holding a large flowerpot with a fake flower sticking up out of it.
Cricket thought it was just another April Fools’ joke.
“Happy birthday, Mrs. Cheechia!” said Zoe.
Mrs. Cheechia looked surprised. “How did you know it was my birthday?” she asked.
“We all know,” shouted Julio. “You told us.”
“I did?” asked the teacher. “I guess I forgot about that.”
“And we’re having a party!” Lucas announced.
“We’re giving you a party,” Cricket said, correcting her classmate.
One by one, the students went off and collected the party fare. There were the candies that looked like peas and carrots, and there was a pineapple upside-down cake. Sara Jane had never found any gooseberries, so in the end she had made a carrot cake. Cricket was pleased with the mystery ingredient in her cake, but she wouldn’t tell what it was. “Wait until you eat it, and then see if you can guess,” she told her classmates.
Zoe’s flowerpot turned out to be filled with not only a fake flower, but also fake dirt. The dirt was really a kind of chocolate pudding. There were even gummy worms inside. Cricket wished that she had thought to make something like that. Luckily, Zoe promised to teach her how. Maybe someday when Monica was a little bigger and had a birthday party, Cricket would make it for her.
The children sang “Happy Birthday” to their teacher and then loaded up their plates with the party foods.
“This certainly is a surprise,” Mrs. Cheechia kept saying.
No one was able to guess the mystery ingredient in Cricket’s cake. Julio said zucchini because it had been right the last time he had made a wild guess. This time he was wrong.
Sara Jane guessed eggs.
“That’s not a mystery ingredient,” said Cricket. “Almost all cakes have eggs.”
“Potatoes?”
“Rice?”
“Buttermilk,” guessed Mrs. Cheechia. Even she was wrong.
When everyone had ventured a guess and no one had come up with the correct answer, Cricket made her announcement. “The mystery ingredient is tomato soup,” she said with triumph.
“I don’t believe it,” said Lucas. But it was not an April Fools’ joke. It was the truth.
“All right, boys and girls,” called Mrs. Cheechia when every crumb of cake and dirt had been consumed and all the peas and carrots had disappeared into the mouths of her students and all the paper plates and napkins had been put into the overflowing wastebasket. “Listen carefully while I give you your homework assignment.”
“Homework?” the students moaned.
“Tonight?” demanded Julio. “You’re giving us homework on Friday night?” The students rarely had homework assignments over the weekend.
“We have to make up for the time we lost this afternoon,” said Mrs. Cheechia. “We didn’t finish the science unit that we’ve been working on. I want you to read pages fifty-nine to seventy-five and answer all the questions at the end of the chapter.”
“Aw, that’s not fair,” groaned Arthur, and his words were echoed by many of the students.
“It’s not fair, but it’s April Fools’!” called out Mrs. Cheechia as the dismissal bell rang. There was no homework after all.
The students left the school building laughing and commenting on the success of their party. “I loved baking that tomato soup cake,” said Cricket to her friends.
“I still don’t believe there was tomato soup in it,” said Lucas. “I think you just made it up.”
“Why don’t you come to my house tomorrow, and we’ll make another one,” Cricket said to Lucas. “Everyone come,” she added, inviting Zoe, Sara Jane, Lucas, and Julio, who were all standing together.
“Is that an April Fools’ joke or a real invitation?” Zoe asked.
“It’s for real,” Cricket said seriously. “I think we should start a club and cook together all the time. We always have fun when we cook.”
“I second the motion!” shouted Julio.
“I even found another cake with a different mystery ingredient,” Cricket told her friends. “It has mayonnaise in it, but it’s a chocolate cake. I had a hard time deciding which cake to make for today. We’ll have to try that one too.”
“We won’t cook asparagus or cabbage, will we?” asked Sara Jane. “I don’t like them.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Cricket. “Just desserts.”
“Chocolate cake, apple pie, peanut butter cookies, and Zoe’s dirt. Only the best,” said Lucas.
“I second the motion!” Julio called out again.
“We’ll even make Gooseberry Fool, if we ever find gooseberries,” said Cricket.
“Just desserts. We’ll have a great time,” called out Zoe.
And that was no April Fools’ joke.
Cricket’s Souper Surprise Cake
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg
1⁄4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, at room temperature
1 can condensed tomato soup (do not add water)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins
Cooking Directions
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Measure out one cup of sugar into a bowl and add two tablespoons of butter or margarine. Mix together with a fork.
• Add all the dry ingredients: flour, salt, spices. Mix together.
• Add the condensed tomato soup to the other ingredients.
• Stir until smooth.
• Add walnuts and raisins.
• Bake in a greased and floured tube pan for about 45 minutes. Test for doneness by poking a wooden toothpick into cake. If it comes out dry, you will know the cake is ready to be removed from the oven.
• Cooled cake may be served plain or frosted. (See frosting recipe given with carrot cake.) Slices of plain cake could also be topped with freshly whipped sweetened cream.
Better-Than-17-Carat-Gold Carrot Cake
Cake Ingredients
4 eggs
2 cups of white sugar
1 ½ cups canola or corn oil
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
8-ounce can crushed pineapple
(chopped walnuts or pecans, optional)
Frosting Ingredients
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick butter or margarine, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 sixteen-ounce box confectioners’ sugar
1⁄2 cup raisins
1⁄2 cup chopped pecans
Cooking Directions
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Beat eggs and sugar together.
• Stir in oil. Add other ingredients. Mix thoroughly.
• Pour into greased and floured 10-inch-by-15-inch sheet pan.
• Bake for half an hour. Test for doneness with a wooden toothpick.
• While cake is cooling, make frosting by blending all frosting ingredients together. Spread on cooled cake.
Dirt
Ingredients
1 one-pound package chocolate sandwich cookies
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1 stick butter or margarine, melted
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 12-ounc
e container whipped dessert topping
2 packages instant chocolate pudding
3 cups milk
Cooking Directions
• Crush the cookies to the consistency of dirt. You could do this using a blender or by putting cookies between two sheets of waxed paper and crushing with a rolling pin.
• Mix the melted butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add confectioners’ sugar. Fold in whipped topping.
• Mix the pudding with milk and vanilla and fold into above mixture.
• Line a brand-new flowerpot with aluminum foil. This will plug the hole in the bottom. Layer crushed cookies and pudding mixture into pot, ending with some crushed cookies on top. Gummy worms can be added for decoration (or surprise) and some plastic flowers can be stuck into pot for added effect.
• Serve with a clean trowel.
Mystery Ingredient Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
3 eggs
1 2∕3cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup mayonnaise
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1⁄4 teaspoons baking soda
1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
2⁄3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1⁄3 cups water
Cooking Directions
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch-by- 15-inch sheet pan.
• Beat eggs with sugar. Add vanilla and mayonnaise and beat together.
• Add flour with baking soda, baking powder, and cocoa. Gradually add the water.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean—about 25 minutes. Cool.
• Serve with confectioners’ sugar sprinkled through a strainer on top of the cake or with whipped cream or ice cream.
About the Author
JOHANNA HURWITZ is the award-winning author of many popular books for young readers, including Starting School, Llama in the Library, Ever-Clever Elisa, and Faraway Summer. She has received a number of child-chosen state awards, including the Texas Bluebonnet Award, the Kentucky Bluegrass Award, and the Garden State Children’s Book Award. A former children’s librarian, Mrs. Hurwitz travels around the country to visit schools and discuss books with students, teachers, parents, and librarians.
The author, a cooking enthusiast, once won first prize at a county fair in Vermont for her blackberry jam recipe. She also took top honors in a nationwide rice recipe competition sponsored by Uncle Ben’s. Mrs. Hurwitz lives with her husband in Great Neck, New York, and Wilmington, Vermont.