Tick-Tock, Make a Clock (Cake)

I'm going to call this clock cake activity lightly educational.

It requires familiarity with the clock face, so that you get all the numbers going the right way. It requires geometry, so that all the numbers are in the right places. If your kiddos make their cakes independently, which mine did, it requires all the miscellaneous math skills that go into everyday baking.

But mostly, this cake is just a fun little thing for you to do with two kids who found analog time-telling VERY non-intuitive and yet stuck with it until they had it down pat.

The cake is just a simple box cake mix, take your pick of flavor. I, personally, am not a fan of box mixes, but I AM a fan of them for the kids. The kids can make dishes like cakes and cupcakes from scratch by themselves, but not without me there to say things like, "Hmm, that doesn't *look* like a teaspoon...", and to therefore save our taste buds from a batch of cupcakes that has 1.5 tablespoons of baking powder in it--ugh!

And sometimes a kid just wants to make herself a batch of cupcakes, you know, without a big lesson on fractions. For that, I am ALL about the box mix.

Anyway, the older kid made herself and her sister a plain ole box mix cake, no drama, no maternal presence in the kitchen, in two round pans. I made up a batch of maple frosting, and colored half of it with our natural food colors and spooned it into Ziplock bags with one corner cut off--instant pastry bag!

The kids frosted their clock cakes white--

--and then worked on writing the numbers. I had them write the 12 first, then the 6 opposite the 12--

--then the 3 and the 9 halfway between the two on each side.

The numbers in between are slightly trickier, since you can't center them, but it's good practice in visualizing thirds.

I didn't think I had any other decorations on hand, but the younger kid found these gross candy corns leftover from the candy corn brownies that she and her sister made before Halloween, and she made herself a nice little set of hour and minute hands from them.

When they were done, the clock cakes looked just fabulous. They tasted pretty great, too!

The kids inhaled one entire clock cake during the day, and then we all inhaled most of the other one while watching The Avengers for Family Movie Night that night. The younger kid is a major Avengers fangirl, and we've just recently introduced both kids to the live-action films starring the Avengers characters, mostly because I SUPER wanted to go see Thor 2 this weekend!

Which we did. It was awesome. This fangirl, and the mini fangirl, were both thrilled.