Week 1 Storytelling: Pat-A-Cake

PAT-A-CAKE, pat-a-cake, baker's man!


(So I will, master), as fast as I can:

Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with T,

Put in the oven for Tommy and me.


(traditional nursery ryhme)

At the tender age of 5, a little girl named Mary decided she wanted to become a famous baker.  Her favorite shows of all time were "Cupcake Wars" and "Chopped".  She watched these shows faithfully every chance she could.  One day, she walked up to her mommy and said, "Please teach me how to bake.  I want to be a famous baker".  Every day she would ask her mother the same questions and impatiently wait for her mother to help her.  Mary wanted to learn how to bake right now and as fast as she possibly could.  Once her mother started to teach her, Mary picked up the skills quickly.  She learned how to measure the ingredients, crack eggs and mix them all together.  When the ingredients were mixed well, Mary learned how to knead, pat and prick the bread so that it would rise correctly in the oven.  Mary's mom put the bread in the oven for her.  Mary watched with eager eyes as her dough began to rise and look more and more like bread with each passing moment.  When the bread was done, her mother took it out of the oven.  Mary wanted to taste her creation immediately, but she was told she had to wait until it cooled down before cutting it.  Mary couldn't contain her excitement, so she ran into her big brother's room to exclaim her achievements!  Her brother, Tom, was not amused by his sister bursting into his room to tell him about the bread.  He was busy playing video games on his computer.  Mary didn't care; she wanted her brother to be one of the first people to taste her new creation.  So, she ran back into the kitchen and begged her mom to cut the first slice of bread for Tom.  She then got the squeeze bottle of margarine from the refrigerator and wrote a big letter "T" across that freshly sliced bread.  Mary ran back to Tom and presented him with her creation.  He belted out a jolly laugh when he noticed the letter "T" written in margarine on the bread.  Tom thanked Mary for giving him the bread.  She wasn't about to leave his room until he tasted it, so Tom took a big bite.  It was the most delicious bread he had ever tasted, he said.  From that day forward, Tom was Mary's number one taste tester every time Mary and her mom decided to bake anything new.

(Image information: Pat-a-Cake by Mary Brigid Barrett and Illustrated by LeUyen Pham.

   

(Image information: Personal photo of my daughter & avid baker, Mary...who was my inspiration for this story)

Author's Note: This story is based on the nursery rhyme "Pat-A-Cake" which is quoted there in the story; you can find the rhyme in The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L, Leslie Brooke (1897). 

The reason I chose this story was because this nurse rhyme was one of my daughter's favorite nursery rhymes as a toddler.  We would do the hand motions to this rhyme repeatedly everyday.  I changed the story quite a bit.  I rewrote the story to reflect my daughter's love of baking.  I put a modern twist on the storyline by including her favorite cooking shows and including her brother into the story as well.  Even though her brother's real name is not Tom, I changed his name in my story to follow along with the original storyline.  I also embellished the story with details about her brother and the setting itself.  The story implies that the baker is an adult, so I decided to change the baker's age to my daughter's age and I added myself in as her "helper" or baker's assistant.

The photos I chose represented both the Pat-A-Cake nursery rhyme written by Mary Barrett and one of Mary's baking lessons with me.  We were baking chocolate chip cookies and were decorating them for the holidays.  When we bake together, it is always fun and makes both of us extremely happy.