It was the day after Christmas, and four of us were huddled around the spiffy red Easy-Bake Oven our friend Julie got from Santa, patiently waiting for our chocolate cake to finish.
We excitedly took turns peering into the tiny plastic window to watch it bake, not knowing — or likely caring if we did know — that we might scorch our young retinas by staring into the white-hot heart of that 120-watt inferno.
After waiting for an excruciating 10 minutes, the cake was finally ready. Julie carefully covered it in fudgy frosting and split it four ways. This amounted to one bite each, but it was the best chocolate cake we ever ate because we baked it ourselves. We felt so grown up — a magical thing to a bunch
