We had laid out all the ingredients. "Okay, let's start with the cake. I wanted to make a layered cake. Half of it normal cake, the other half chocolate cake. How does that sound?" I looked at her for a response. "That sounds delish! My mouth is watering already." I grinned at her "Want me to give you a bib, ducky?" She punched my shoulder. "Hey, I'm not a baby!" I rubbed my arm. "Okay, we need two bowls for the cake mixture." Kristin took out two plastic bowls. "Okay, I want you to take out the following. A weighing scale, the salt, a wooden spoon if you have one, a knife and some rum." Kristin looked at me. "What?" I asked. "How can you ask me if I have a wooden spoon, but then be sure I have rum?". I raised an eyebrow at her "I know you have rum." She eyed me suspiciously. "How can you be so sure?" I pointed at a little bottle on the kitchen counter behind her "Because we bought it in the supermarket." Kristin's face turned red. "Oh... right." She placed all the ingredients on the island behind her. "Now." I started, ignoring the last minute. "Take one pack of butter and place it in one of the bowls." She did what I told her. "Place it in the microwave and put it on half a minute." When the butter was in the microwave, she took out the scales I had requested. I took the flour and opened it. I weighed the flour and told Kristin the amounts. The microwave pinged and Kristin reached for it. "Be careful, it might be hot." She turned around and grabbed the towel I handed her. She took out the bowl and placed it on the table. I gave her the flour. "Take your wooden spoon and mix in the flour, but gently." She did what I told her. When the flour was in, I repeated the step, but this time with sugar. I cut the lemon in half and asked her to squeeze some juice in the mixture. "Careful not to squeeze it in your eye. It could blind you." She looked at me in shock. "Really?" she asked me. "Probably not. but it hurts like hell. Lemon juice is an acid. It's not going to be pleasant." She nodded and gently squeezed the lemon. I placed the lemon parts in the fridge for the moment.

I gave Kristin the salt. "Okay, now I want you to add a pinch of salt." She looked at me a little confused. "Sprinkle a little bit of salt on one hand and then with the other take some salt between your thumb and index finger. That's a pinch of salt." She nodded and did exactly what I told her "See, baking is not that difficult." I added two teaspoons of baking powder to the mixture, while Kristin kept stirring it gently. I added half a cup of milk and told her to add four eggs to the bowl. She wanted to tap the eggs on the side of the bowl, but I stopped her. "What's wrong with that?" she asked me in surprise. "Nothing's wrong with it, in fact it works perfectly. But when you tap it too hard on the side, it tends to drip down the wrong side and leave a mess. Hold the egg in your hand and tap it carefully with the knife. But only just hard enough to crack the shell. Then stick your thumbs inside the egg and break them apart." I took one egg and showed her what I meant. "This way if you break the egg, it will fall in the bowl already." She nodded and did the other three eggs. We washed our hands quickly and Kristin stirred the cake mix together. "What do we add now?" Kristin asked me after the mixture looked smooth. "Now we split the cake over the two bowls and add coco powder to one of them." I took the other bowl and placed it on the island. Kristin carefully started tipping the bowl above the empty one. "How much do I put in the other bowl?" I shrugged. "It depends on if you want more chocolate in the cake or not." She split the cake mixture almost equally. I smiled at her, proudly. "Who ever said you weren't good at baking needs a reality check!" I kind of figured I was included in that group too. I took a spoon and gave it to Kristin, together with the coco powder. "Add some powder to the mixture with the wooden spoon and mix it until you think you've added enough chocolate." Kristin grinned at me "It's never enough chocolate." I knew my face mirrored hers. "I know. If there is one addiction I have, it's chocolate." I looked over my shoulder to the jar of chocolate chips we bought. I shifted my eyes back to Kristin and saw her looking at the jar too. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked her. "Can we do that?" she asked. "It's our cake, we can do what ever we want to it!"

Kristin grabbed the jar and looked at it "Okay, I think we'll go for white chocolate chips then." She added a handful of chocolate chips to the cake mix, I added a few drops of rum and she stirred it again until it was a nice colour of chocolate brown. "Now what?" she asked me. I took the cake form and the paper that held the stick of butter before. "We rub the form with the buttered side of the paper. This makes it so the cake won't stick to the form when it's cooking. To make it even more sure, we can add a little flower to the form as well." Kristin rubbed the form with the paper until it shone with the grease. "Is there an easier way to do this?" She asked me. "Yeah, they have grease sprays as well, but I'm used to doing it this way. Make sure I use all the butter and only throw the paper away and all." I added a tablespoon of flour in the form and rolled it around until all the sides of the form were covered in a thin layer of it. "Okay, now we will add the mixture on layer at a time." Kristin looked a little doubtful "Wouldn't the layers mix with each other?" I nodded. "That's the effect we are going for. When you cut the cake afterwards it will have a marble like look. It's really neat." Kristin formed a perfect O with her mouth and poured the first layer of normal cake mixture. I then added a layer of chocolate. We kept going at it until the form was filled to about about an inch underneath the edge. We still had a little mixture left. Kristin looked at me. "What do we do with this?" She asked me. I wiggled my eyebrows. "We eat it!" Her eyes grew wide "Really? I love cake mix!" I nodded. And to prove I wasn't joking I wiped my finger through a little of the left over mixture and put my finger in my mouth. Kristin squeed and followed my example. "I feel like a little kid again!" She chirped.

We finished the left over mixture and I washed the bowls quickly. I told her to place the cake in the middle of the oven and what temperature she needed to put it on. "How long will it need to bake?" I dried the last bowl and placed both bowls on the island again. "About 80 minutes, that's why I wanted to put it in the oven now. It will take the longest time. Bit in the mean time, we can make the chocolate chip cookies and while they wait in the fridge, we can make the spaghetti." We added another stick of butter to the form and heated it up until it was melted. "Why do you heat up your butter? I've never seen people do that really." I shrugged. "I think because it's easier to mix everything when the butter is warm. If the butter is ice-cold, it takes for ever to mix and it gets really messy." We added 3/4 cup of granulated white sugar and 3/4 cup of brown sugar. Mixing it carefully with the butter until it looked smooth and then added two eggs and a teaspoon and a half of vanilla extract. In the other bowl we added 2 1/4 cup of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda and salt and stirred it together. "Why do we use baking soda?" Kristin asked. She seemed really interested in the baking. "It's to make sure the cookies will rise and be fluffy and all." I gave Kristin the bowl with the wooden spoon and told her to keep stirring while I added the flour mixture. "Do you want mixed chocolate chip cookies or separate?" I asked her when I added about half of the flour mixture. "I want three sorts!" Kristin said excitedly.

We mixed the dough thoroughly, kneading it with our hands when it became to rough for the wooden spoon and split it in two. In Kristin's bowl she added the milk chocolate chips and I added the white chocolate chips. When we were done I rolled both of the dough in to big balls and placed them in the same bowl. I covered it with plastic foil and put it in the fridge. Then we went for the cheese cookies. "This is probably the easiest recipe you can find. It consists out of 4 ingredients. Flour, butter, cheese and a pinch of salt. The flour, butter and cheese are always the same amounts. If we would use one cup of flour, then we use one cup of cheese and one cup of butter to." Kristin clasped her hands in excitement. "I can totally do this one!" she exclaimed. We added the ingredients together in the bowl. "The only thing I would usually add is a type of soy sauce, but I don't know if they have it here. So we won't add it. It can go with out it." Kristin kneaded it together and we placed the bowl in the fridge as well. "Now comes the fun part." I said, while we washed our hands again. "We make dinner!" Kristin answered me. "And you get to play with the big knife." I said "But I will teach you first how to cut things without cutting your fingers off." Kristin blushed at that remark and I winked at her.

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