Kitchen Chaos

“This is a great idea, Jessie!” Emily exclaimed as she pulled a stepstool close to the kitchen counter. “I’m sure my mom is going to love ooey, gooey, chocolatey cookies for her birthday.”

“My mom likes chocolate, too,” Jessie replied. “She said so when I helped her bake cookies yesterday.”

“Hey, girls, what’s up?” asked Emily’s dad as he walked into the kitchen.

“Daddy, can Jessie and I make some cookies to surprise Mom for her birthday?” Emily asked.

“Well, Mom’s not home right now. Do you girls know how to make cookies?”

“I’ve helped my mom do it lots of times,” Jessie assured him.

“And I’ve helped Mommy, too,” said Emily, nodding her head.

“Hmm . . .” said Emily’s dad, “I guess it’s all right, but let me do the oven part, okay?”

“Yay! Come on, Jessie!” Emily skipped over to a bookshelf, pulled out a worn cookbook, and flipped through the pages. “Here’s the recipe Mom always uses. I can tell by the picture. See?”

“Yum. Those look good. I can’t read all these instructions though. But I know my mom always starts with butter,” Jessie said.

Emily raced to the refrigerator and took out some butter. The girls stood on their stepstools at the counter and put the butter into a mixing bowl.

“Next we need eggs,” Emily announced. She hit an egg against the side of the bowl—craaack! “Eeew, it’s goopy! Here, you take it,” she said as she handed the broken egg to Jessie. But when Jessie tried to grab the slippery egg, it slid right through her fingers—shloop!

“Yuck!” cried Emily.

“How about if I crack the eggs and you get the flour,” Jessie suggested.

Emily hunted through the cupboards for the flour. She removed the lid and tipped the container over the mixing bowl. A small bit of flour slowly slid into the bowl. Jessie stirred it into the butter and eggs. The girls peered into the bowl at the mucky mess. “I don’t think we have enough flour.”

Emily picked up the flour container again and shook it this time. A huge clump of flour came sliding out and dumped into the bowl! Poof!

“Ahh!” Jessie and Emily sputtered and blinked as the flour exploded all around them. It covered their faces and hair. The girls looked at each other. “I don’t think that was supposed to happen,” said Jessie.

“Well, that should be plenty of flour now.” Emily assured her. “Stir it up.”

Jessie took the spoon and tried to stir all the flour in. “This is too thick. I can’t do it.”

“Maybe Daddy will help,” Emily suggested. “I’ll go get him.”

While she was waiting, Jessie poured a whole bag of chocolate chips into the mix.

Soon Emily was back with her dad. “Oh, my! What happened in here? Did it rain flour?” he asked, making a goofy face.

The girls giggled and tried to brush the flour off each other.

“We had a little trouble getting the flour into the bowl. But now we just need to mix it all up. Will you help us?” asked Jessie as she handed the spoon to her uncle.

“Hmm. I think this is going to be hard to stir with a spoon. How about if we use the mixer?” said Emily's dad.

The girls watched as Emily’s dad set up the mixer and put the bowl on the stand.

“This should do the job,” he said. He set the beaters down into the bowl and then pulled the lever to turn on the mixer.

They all watched as the beaters whirred round and round, spinning faster and faster. Suddenly, to their horror, chocolate chips came flying out of the bowl, hitting the cupboards and walls—plink-plonk!

“Ow!” screamed Jessie. “Those chocolate chips hurt!”

“Eeew! Yuck!” Emily cried as slimy eggs and butter splattered across her front.

“Whoa! Whoa!” coughed Emily’s dad through the fog of flour as he grasped for the lever to turn the mixer off.

When the mixer finally stopped, they all stared at the mess. Sticky clumps of butter and flour lay in the bottom of the bowl. Most of the chocolate chips had flown out and lay all over the kitchen floor. Jessie stuck her finger into the batter to taste it. “Blech! That’s terrible.”

“Ick! You’re right,” agreed Emily after tasting a tiny bite.

Emily’s dad poked at the globs of batter with the spoon. “Wow! I think you better start over,” he said. “What do the instructions say to do?”

Jessie and Emily both shrugged. “We don’t know. I can’t read all the instructions,” said Jessie.

“Well,” said Emily’s dad, “let’s clean this all up, then I’ll read the recipe, and you can do what it says.”

They set to work. Emily’s dad read the instructions and showed the girls how to measure the flour, butter, and sugar. When they finished, the batter dropped easily onto the pans, making perfect little mountains of dough that would bake into round, chewy cookies.

“That’s more like it,” Emily said proudly. “I can’t wait to taste them!”

Finally, the last batch of cookies came out of the oven—just in time.

“I’m home!” Emily’s mom walked into the kitchen and sniffed. “What smells so good?”

“Surprise! Happy birthday!” Emily held a plate of cookies out to her.

“Hey! These are really yummy,” said Emily’s mom. “But how did you manage to bake cookies without me here to help?”

Jessie, Emily, and her dad all looked at each other and grinned. “Well, at first it was quite a mess, but we managed to do it right—once we followed the instructions.”