This one-shot was requested by Guest.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago.
Cole had been desperate for a slice of cake for days, weeks even, and today was finally the day. He had finally managed to find all of the ingredients he needed before they sold out, so he could make the best cake the world has ever seen.
"Alright. You ready C.J.?" Cole asked as he set all the ingredients on the counter. He then brought C.J., who was wearing a little chef hat, up to sit next to the bowl he had set out C.J.
"Yeah!" Cole bent down so that C.J. could place another chef hat onto his head. They were ready to bake now.
The earth ninja picked up a spoon while C.J. picked up his, and the two hit them together. After heating up the oven and greasing a pan big enough for a cake as amazing as they planned to make it, it was time to mix up the batter. For the batter, they needed flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
"Do want to pour the ingredients or do you want to mix them together?" Cole asked his son.
C.J. held up his spoon and a measuring cup that seemed to appear out of thin air and started working on getting the flour. Just as Cole was about to tell him to stop, the flour spilled into C.J.'s lap and puffed into his face making him look as white as a ghost.
"Uh oh," C.J. said as he looked down at the bunch in his lap.
"Don't worry. We'll just, uh, use this flour," Cole said as he began wiping the flour off of his son's pants and into the measuring cup. Much to Cole's dismay, he filled the entire cup, and C.J. was still a mess. Quickly, Cole filled all the other measuring cups with the right amount of the other ingredients and told C.J. to dump them all in the bowl. He then ran off to their room and found another clean pair of pants. Upon coming back to the kitchen, he saw that C.J. was beating the bowl of ingredients with his spoon.
"Whatcha doin', Buddy?" Cole asked.
"I bored," C.J. replied.
"I've been gone for less than a minute!"
"Oh."
Cole laughed as he took an empty trashcan out from under one of the cabinets and picked C.J. up so that all the extra flour fell into the trashcan. He then tried to wipe C.J.'s face off with a wet paper towel, but the toddler ended up covering his face with his hands.
"I need to clean your face off, C.J."
"No."
"You want to be dirty for the rest of your life?"
"No," C.J. began to laugh.
"Then let me see your face," Cole said as he began to tickle the boy's stomach. C.J. started laughing hard as he grasped his dad's hand, letting Cole use his other hand to quickly wipe the flour off C.J.'s face.
He then placed C.J. on the floor so the toddler could change into his other pair of pants.
Finally, Cole went to Kai's room (as all the other ninja were away on a mission) and grabbed an old jacket the fire ninja hadn't worn in a while. He put this on C.J. to act as a very over sized apron, and the two continued.
The next ingredients were eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Unfortunately, the first thing C.J. did was grab the eggs and throw them into the bowl.
"I'll never make a good meal," Cole groaned to himself.
"Uh oh," C.J. said as he pointed to the egg shells in the bowl. He looked like he could barely contain his laughter.
"Yeah! Uh oh!" Cole exclaimed, starting to feel slightly frustrated.
With a big smile on his face, C.J. took a spoon from the utensil bin behind him and began trying to scoop the egg shells out. He seemed to be really enjoying it.
"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Cole asked.
C.J. looked up at his father with guilty puppy eyes. He really did like taking the shells out of the bowl.
Cole sighed. He really couldn't stay mad at this kid.
"All done!" C.J. exclaimed as he held out a gooey shell to his dad."
"Okay, okay. Just put that in the trashcan."
C.J. did.
"Oh! Looks like you missed one. Let me just..." Cole took the spoon from his son and got the last eggshell out of the batter. He then put the last few ingredients in the bowl.
Next, it was time to mix the ingredients together. Cole looked in the baking cabinet for the mixer, but it was no where to be found. He looked on the messy counters, tried to clean the messy counters, and even found himself searching in the fridge at one point in time, but it was no where to be found.
"C.J., have you seen the-" Cole stopped when he saw that in his son's hands was the mixer.
"I mix," C.J. said confidently.
"Uh, I'm not so sure if that's the best idea..." Cole trailed off a moment after taking the mixer back. C.J. looked pretty disappointed. "That is unless you let me help you," Cole added.
C.J.'s face lit up at the idea.
After plugging the mixer in, Cole gave it back to the blond, who promptly put it in the bowl. Then, Cole took C.J.'s smaller hands into his own and guided them as C.J. tried to mix the batter. At first, the noise seemed to frighten C.J., but he quickly got used to it, and before long, the cake was in the oven. Even with Cole's help, the batter had been splattered all over both of their faces.
"Was that fun?" Cole asked. He and C.J. had been sitting at the table the last ten minutes licking the whisks from the mixer to get as much sugary flavor as humanely possible.
"Yeah," C.J. replied. He seemed to be deep in thought for a moment before looking back at his dad and giggling happily.
"You thinkin' of something funny?" Cole asked.
"It was on my face," C.J. giggled.
"The flour?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, that was funny."
Another moment of thought before C.J. yelled, "Again!"
"We'll make another one as soon as we finish with this one. Don't worry."
"But-but-" C.J. wasn't able to find the words he was looking for, so he eventually just shouted, "Again!"
"You really want to make another cake already?" Cole asked.
"Yeah."
Cole sighed. He had to admit, baking that cake was fun, and they had fifteen minutes to spare. Unfortunately, that was not enough time to make another cake, but Cole had an idea. "I have a surprise for you, C.J.," he said.
"'Prise?" C.J. asked.
"Yep!" Cole replied as he picked C.J. up and placed him on his shoulders.
Cole took a box from the top shelf of their closet and brought it down. Jay had gotten it for Cole for his last birthday saying that he wasn't allowed back into the kitchen until he could master every recipe in the easy bake oven. Luckily, Cole had tricked the others into thinking he mastered it when he turned every recipe into his mom's cake recipe. The only recipe he had never messed up. "You can bake small cakes in this thing, and it only takes..." Cole read the box, "fifteen minutes. Perfect!"
C.J. jumped around excitedly as he and his father took the easy bake to the kitchen and plugged it in. Quickly, Cole got the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and oil back out, and the two got to work. They each took turns putting each of these ingredients in a bowl and mixed it up. Cole then poured the batter into a small pan and put it into the small oven. C.J. twisted the dials to start baking the small cake when suddenly, the timer to the big oven sounded, so the two had something to do while they waited for the smaller cake.
Cole took a big piece of cake for both him and his son. Once C.J.'s plate was placed in front of the boy, C.J. started excitedly jumping up and down in his seat.
"You don't have to eat it all," Cole stated nervously when he realized just how big the piece was.
"Okay," C.J. replied, but he didn't seem to be actually listening.
Cole just shook his head, knowing that it would be a while until they could make another cake anyway. When the earth ninja took a bite, he realized that it tasted a bit different. It wasn't bad, though. In fact, it tasted like it did when he was a kid. Something he could never pull off on his own.
"C.J.? Did you do something to the batter?" He'd followed the recipe exactly as he had all these years. The only thing he could think of that was different was that he had a baking partner this time.
C.J. shrugged, now knowing what Cole was talking about, but he then seemed to remember something. The toddler got up from his seat and moved to the counter. He stood on his tiptoes so he could reach a bag sitting next to the flour. He took the bag and gave it to his father. Upon opening the bag, Cole found that it was filled with chocolate chips.
"How many did you put in the batter, Ceej?"
"Dis many!" C.J. exclaimed as he held up five fingers.
"Only five?"
"No," C.J. shook his head. "Dis many!" He said as he held up five fingers on one hand and zero in the other.
"Is that it?" Cole asked.
C.J. thought for a moment before saying, "Yeah."
Quickly, Cole shuffled through one of the kitchen drawers and found his mom's cake recipe, which failed to mention the chocolate chip part. She was very protective of her recipes. He wrote down the part about the chocolate chips before turning back to the toddler and asking, "Are you sure you didn't put in anything else?"
"I sure."
Cole couldn't stop smiling. After years of horrible cooking, he finally found someone who could help him make his recipes better. And C.J. seemed to really like it too.
"You know, I do need a little help making my duck chowder edible. You wanna help me cook dinner tonight?"
"Yay!" C.J. exclaimed.
"Great!"
Once the mini cake was finished and eaten, Cole and C.J. got to work on the duck chowder. He hadn't told the other ninja that he was going to make dinner yet, and if he was being perfectly honest, he was terrified of how it would turn out.
"So the recipe calls for duck meat, carrots, celery, onions, salt, butter, flour, salt, thyme, and honey," Cole said.
C.J. looked at his father strangely. He took the pencil away from Cole and scribbled out honey.
"No honey?" Cole asked.
"No," C.J. shook his head.
"Fine. Anything else?"
"No."
"So, we can get started then?"
"Yeah!" C.J. exclaimed.
Cole and C.J. worked together to make the duck chowder, but just as they were about to stir all the ingredients together, C.J. said, "Daddy?"
"Yeah, Buddy?"
"Juice?"
"Sure! What kind of juice do you want?"
C.J. hummed a moment before taking an apple from a nearby bag and showing it to Cole.
"Apple juice?"
"Yeah!"
"Coming right up."
Once Cole's back was turned, C.J. tore the apple apart to see that it was actually a sweet pepper. He then put this into the pot and stirred it up. He really wanted to make this with his dad again.
The duck chowder was finished and Cole and C.J. were working on setting the table when they heard a nervous voice saying, "Cole?"
The two looked behind them to see that the lightning ninja was looking absolutely horrified.
"Please tell me you didn't cook dinner," Kai begged.
"It good," C.J. said.
"Yeah, I let C.J. help me this time."
The toddler looked to his two uncles with a sweet look on his face. Jay and Kai looked to each other nervously but decided to give it a try for their nephew's sake.
"It never hurts to try something new," Jay said.
"I can eat," Kai said at the same time.
The ninja were all seated at the table with nervous looks on their faces, barely touching their food. Meanwhile, C.J. was stuffing his face.
"Come on, Guys," Cole pleaded.
Zane was the first to take a bite, and his reaction wasn't bad. None of the other ninja would follow his lead, though.
"Zane likes it," the earth ninja continued.
"Zane's a nindroid," Jay whispered.
"It is quite enjoyable," Zane defended.
This gained Lloyd's curiosity, and he took a bite. "Woah, Cole, this is pretty good."
"You're serious?" Nya asked.
The rest of the ninja, other than Jay, took a bite and were surprised that Cole actually made something that tasted good.
"Come on, Jay. It's good," Nya told him.
Jay looked to Nya skeptically. He then looked back to his plate, to Cole, to C.J., then back to his plate. Scared for his life, he looked to Nya. Are you sure? his eyes seemed to say.
Finally, after looking at everyone's excited faces and C.J. looking adorably at the only person who had not tried the food he helped his father make, the blue clad ninja gave in. He took a bite, and before long, the entire plate was gone.
"I must ask, Cole. How did you fix the recipe?" Zane asked as he was doing the dishes later that night. Cole was sitting at the table, eating another piece of cake.
"It wasn't me. C.J. did it, and then helped me make it. I'm not sure how, but he understands this kind of stuff," Cole replied.
"He's always been very smart. I imagine he will grow up to be great."
Cole smiled as he responded, "He is great."
I hope you all liked this chapter. Next chapter should be out pretty soon.
Have a great day/night!
#God'sNotDead