Carol’s Column

King Alfred never made a mountain out of a cupcake

WHEN God made mothers, He made a real right mess of me. Besides two left hands, flat feet and knock knees, He made me a rotten cookie baker.

This weekend I nearly burnt our home down.

While attempting to bake my seventh flopped banana loaf, the phone rang.

And, as always happens in this house when the phone rings, every other member of my family suffers from temporary deafness, or is busy doing important things that cannot be interrupted.

Such as reading a book, watching TV or contemplating their navels.

Which left Licquorice-the-labrador or me to answer. Licquorice was eating a bone.

While I chatted on the phone, a horrible and foul smell issued forth from the kitchen.

Oh, tragedy. Yet another banana loaf had died a horrible death, burnt to a crisp. Which wouldn't have been so bad had the stove not caught fire too.

Never throw water on an electric appliance, say the experts. Use sand.

The nearest sand was 600 or so kilometres away, residing on Durban's whites-only beaches — the sand for blacks, coloureds and Indians being slightly further down the coast, you understand.

So I used flour to extinguish the fire. It saved my kitchen. Yet today, everything is still coated white, even my children. Which some would remark is fortunate in this country.

The swords of Damocles arrived home last week. Three of them. In the form of the customary beginning-of-term school letters sent to terrorise mothers.

Dear Mother,

Please can you bake some home-made cookies, cakes or other goodies to place in the school freezers for use at netball, hockey, rugby, swimming and other functions.

We ask you not to buy shop-made cakes, home-made are much more appreciated by the children.'

They are?

They're speaking about children who haven't sampled my deformed sponge cake that never rises, my rock-hard scones, my burnt banana loaves, my chocolate cakes from which even the icing flees in horror at being associated with such disasters.

Over the years, I've tried everything.

My mother-in-law has given me the simplest recipes saying: “Any fool can follow them.” Quite.

I even attended a baking course at a renowned cookery school — the only mother in the history of the school asked to leave after three lessons.

“Mrs Lazar,” said the teacher, “baking is not, and never will be, your forté. Why don't you try something more suited to your disposition ... such as bricklaying or botany?”

I was devastated. What child wants a bricklaying, botanist for a mother?

It stands to reason that every little stomach longs for the satisfying, filling feeling of a luscious, high-rise, home-made sponge cake with orange icing.

What could be more delectable than scones that melt in my children's mouth-holes or banana loaves that are moist and tasty?

What makes it worse is that not only is every other mother in South Africa perfect, but she's a brilliant baker too. My children tell me all the time.

I have to admit — I am a failure. An also-ran.

But the thing about being a mother is that one can never be seen to be a failure.

So, this time, I cunningly iced the loaves of shop-bought bread, sprinkled them with hundreds and thousands and decorated them with glacé cherries until they resembled the most exotic, home-made cakes.

And handed them proudly to my offspring the following day.

“Ma, they look sensational,” said Jamie, Nicky and Ralph in unison.

I hung my head with pride.

“It was nothing,” I said bashfully.

Behind every successful mother is a streak of inventive cunning.

It was only as they shot off to school that I heard Ralph saying to his siblings: “For heaven's sake, take a good look at Ma's cakes and remember not to eat them. And also, when they ask whose mother baked them, act dumb.”

Which just goes to show. You can fool some of the people some of the time. But kids? Never.

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