Rainbow Unicorn Bakery

Kids are nothing if not ambitious, and Child Harbat doubly so.  This Saturday she tells me she wants to make her own bakery.  “But just like Starbucks, what do they sell there?”  We came up with a list of coffee, chocolate and vanilla milk, pound cake, croissants, cookies, pastries, and rolls.  Then she told me she wants to bake all that, set up a glass-fronted cabinet outside, and sell it.  My adult mind thought, “Impossible.”  But by noon we were baking, and our first project was pasteis de nata, a marvelous egg custard pastry found in Portugal, the best of which can be found at Pasties de Belem.  Our version was simplified and made with filo but came out tasty.

 

With a half-dozen egg whites left over I suggested we make meringues.  One cookie sheet later I realized it took 90 minutes to bake so we decided to dump the rest of the meringue into a pie crust, bake, and top with strawberries.  CH then directed me to cut up a box and get out plastic wrap while she “set up” the bakery out front of the house.  I still had no idea how we’d pull this off, how she was going to recreate Starbucks.  “It takes days, months, to make what Starbucks has,” I told her.  “Just cut this box open, Babbo.”  Five minutes later it was a cake display.  Oh me of little faith.

 

Then I began to release my grip on the impossible and started to dream the possible.  We made a glass-fronted display case with labels.

 

She set up a back counter with tongs, serving bags, and got together a tip jar and cash register.  None of this was my idea, I was only the assistant.  I present the Rainbow Unicorn Bakery!

 

 

Neighbors and friends stopped by and within the hour she sold most everything and made a sizable chunk of money.  But more than that, she made me into a believer.