I Blinded Them. With Science. Or A Huge Amount Of Sugar. It's Hard To Tell.

So last summer, before we headed out of town to go camping for the weekend, I packed sandwiches to eat on the road for dinner. Just peanut butter sandwiches. Ok, not really just peanut butter. They were peanut butter banana sandwiches. OK, fine, not just plain ol' peanut butter banana sandwiches, I added honey, for extra sweetness. And... a secret ingredient! An ingredient that not only fulfilled everyone's vegetable serving for the meal, but also added that nutrient left out of most camping food: fiber. That's right. My secret ingredient was cabbage!

High five for cabbage!

Dude.

Seriously?
You can't leave me hanging like this!

People are beginning to stare....
It's embarrassing.
For realsie.

OK, fine. Be like that. But, you know what? It was PURPLE cabbage, people! PURPLE!  Which, as everyone knows, is the Fancy Nancy cabbage of the cruciferous world. Which, I thought would sell, at least Ellie, right off. I mean, the girl was wearing a tutu on a camping trip for goodness sakes! But, apparently, one should never put purple cabbage in a peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich. This seemed to be a unanimous conclusion. No matter who I asked. And, believe me, after the reaction I got from three, normally, sweet and lovely faces, I asked a LOT of people.

How-ev-er, after I got over the initial shock of the total and complete disregard for my whimsical culinary sandwich making skills, I was fiiiiine. Reeeally. Besides, you know what? I thought the sandwich was pretty good and I totally enjoyed my sandwich that night. Aaaand, truthfully, the other half of Katie's the next day. And Ellie's the day after that. But. Not Jon's. Because he's an adult and gosh darn it, should be mature enough to eat a peanut butter and cabbage sandwich even if he thinks, "there is something truly wrong with this." Whatevs. Jon.

So, imagine my surprise when this last weekend at Katie's Brownie Bridging ceremony, at which the girls watched me consume my brownie dessert garnished with a single green bean, Katie and Ellie start making a list of science experiments. Kitchen science experiments. And, heh-hem, at the top of their list?

Cabbage. Cake.

And, so, like any good mother, I jumped at the chance to help them achieve their Madam Curie goals. By facilitating the making of their Cabbage Cake. Using the Scientific Method. To prove legitimacy.

Question: 
Will cabbage taste good in a cake?

Hypothesis:
Cabbage Cake will be good.
Using purple cabbage will turn the cake a lovely lavender color.

Experiment:

Step 1a:
Shred cabbage into bowl.
How much?

Step 1b:
About this much.

Step 2:
While kids are doing the hard work of shredding cabbage by hand, pile all the sugar you can find into a bowl. Mix in the flour and all the other dry ingredients you need. 

Step 3:
Kids are known for their abundance of energy.
This comes in handy because you discover the mixer is broken so
they need to cream in the butter by hand.
Sing with me! "We're building muscles! We're building muscles!"

Step 4a:
DUMP IN THE CABBAGE!
Yum!
(FYI, this is a personal blog. I can spout any opinion I want.)

Step 4b:
Mix it in!
Using muscles!

Step 4c:
Seriously.
Mix it in.
A lot.

Step 5:
Add milk.
Cow, soy, whatever you want.
This is cow because, according to Ellie, "It's sweeter, Mommy!"

Step 6, 7 and 8:
Fill cupcake tin with cupcake papers.
Fill cupcake papers with batter.
Bake.

Step 9:
Allow to cool while...

You make the frosting.

For realsie.

Step 10: 
Frost!

Step 11:
And, finally, and most importantly,
ADD SPRINKLES!
Because sprinkles make everything taste better.
Plus they bring happiness and sunshine.
I'm lying about the sunshine part.

 Analyze:

Did you notice all those thumbs? They're pointing up, people. UP. And. They come with smiles.

Conclusion:
Cabbage cupcakes taste good.
Sadly, purple cabbage does not turn cake a lovely lavender color.

The REAL Conclusion:
I was right. Purple cabbage tastes good in anything. Including peanut butter, banana and honey sandwiches. Science doesn't lie.



P.S. For all you science sticklers out there, Katie wrote up our results with all the real scientific measurements. Because she's awesome like that.

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