"Okay sweetie, add in 120g of butter," said Ellie.
"Like this?" asked Lita, taking a spoonful of butter and adding it to the mixing bowl.
"Yes, exactly like that."
Ellie watched as Lita filled the bowl with butter until the scales showed 119g.
"Good enough," said the little girl.
Her mother smiled, then grabbed the bag of sugar and came up behind Lita.
"Next is the sugar. Here, I'll help you pour it out. We need to reset the scales and then measure 120g again."
"Okay," said Lita as she pressed the button on the scales.
Together they poured the sugar into the bowl, Ellie helping Lita with the bag. Once that was done, Ellie took the bowl off the scales and put the bag of sugar away.
"Great, now let's measure 120g of flour," said the mother as she reset the scales and put an empty bowl on top.
"You won't hold the bag?" asked Lita.
"No, you can use a spoon to measure it out."
"Okay!"
Lita took a spoon and slowly but surely filled the bowl with flour until the scales showed 118g.
"That good enough?" she asked this time.
"Just a bit more," said Ellie.
Lita poured in another spoonful, but ended up going way over the required measurements.
"Oops," she said, bringing her hand to her mouth, a coy smile on her lips.
Ellie let out a laugh.
"Maybe we can make more because Daddy likes to eat a lot," Lita suggested.
Ellie smiled at her suggestion. "Not a bad idea honey, but we'd need to add more of the other ingredients too, and that would take longer. Here, I'll just take some out."
"But what if Daddy wants seconds?" asked the little girl as her mother took out some of the flour.
"There will be enough for everybody to have seconds, I promise."
"Okay."
"Great," said Ellie when she was done. "Now we need to mix the butter and sugar first, so let's get the mixer ready," said Ellie as she took the electric mixer and plugged it in.
"Can I hold it?" asked the little girl.
"Sure, but I'll have to help you with it."
"That's okay!"
Ellie positioned the mixer and started it up, holding it over Lita's hands and controlling the direction it went.
Lita watched fascinated as the two ingredients came together.
"I think it's so cool how it does that," she said.
"Yeah?" asked Ellie.
Lita nodded. "I like the mixer because it's so fast."
"You're right, by hand it would take us a while," agreed the mother.
When mixture looked good enough, Ellie turned off the mixer.
"I'm going to tell Daddy I held the mixer," said Lita.
"And he's going to be so proud of you. Alright, before we continue, we need to crack and beat some eggs. You wanna do that yourself?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Lita.
Ellie passed her two eggs and a small glass bowl, putting the bigger mixing bowl with the batter aside for a moment.
The little girl took one egg, cracked it against the edge of the bowl, then carefully poured out the egg into it. She did the same with the other egg.
"No shells!" she remarked, quite proud of herself.
"Wow! Well done!" exclaimed Ellie. "Now take this and mix them up."
Lita took the whisker from Ellie's hands and beat the eggs together, spilling bits of egg white everywhere.
"Gently!" exclaimed Ellie, worried about the mess she was making.
Lita giggled but changed her approach, being more careful.
"Okay, good, now we need to add that slowly to the batter as we continue mixing it up," said Ellie. "How about I start up the mixer and you pour the eggs in? But, honey - slowly. Alright?"
"Okay," said Lita.
Ellie started up the mixer again and Lita poured in the eggs, stopping every 2 seconds to make sure she was being slow and careful enough.
"Good job," said Ellie as she turned off the mixer again. "Let me add a teaspoon of vanilla extract, one sec."
She grabbed a teaspoon, poured vanilla extract on it, and added it to the batter.
"Is that what will make them vanilla cupcakes?" asked Lita.
"Sure is."
"Can I smell it?"
"Here."
Ellie brought the flask to Lita, who sniffed it.
"Hmm, smells just like vanilla!" she exclaimed. "Can we add more?"
Ellie laughed. "No sweetie, this is very strong, one teaspoon is fine."
"But I like vanilla!"
"Yes, but this is very strong stuff. I promise this is okay."
"But Daddy likes vanilla too!"
"Yes, but if we put too much, it won't taste very nice. And you want these cupcakes to be yummy for Daddy, don't you?"
Lita nodded.
"So one teaspoon is fine. And this way we have more for next time."
"Okay," said Lita.
"Here, we just need to add the flour. Will you help me?"
Lita nodded enthusiastically. She helped Ellie mix in the flour with the rest of the batter as Ellie worked with the electric mixer, turning it on and off to allow her daughter to add the flour intermittently.
Once it was all mixed, Ellie turned to Lita and patted her back.
"That was great! Now all we need to do is put the mixture into the cupcake cases, put those in the oven and we'll be done."
"Can I do that?"
"Of course!"
Ellie helped as Lita took spoonful after spoonful of the batter and put it into the cupcake cases, filling out 12 cases. Then she helped her daughter put the baking tray into the pre-heated oven, and set the timer.
"How long does it take?" asked the little girl.
"About 12 minutes. We'll check it at 10 to see how they're doing."
"When will we know they're done?"
"They'll rise, you'll see."
"Can I watch?"
"Sure thing," said Ellie, running a hand through Lita's hair.
Mother and daughter took out a couple of chairs and sat in front of the oven, watching the cupcakes rise.
"I can't wait to show Daddy," said Lita. "And Juan. And Lizzy. But specially Daddy. I'm going to tell him I didn't get any egg shells in."
Ellie couldn't help but smile. As much as she knew Lita loved her, deep down, she also knew her youngest daughter was a Daddy's Little Girl through and through, and nothing would ever change that.
