January 9, 2025
By Signe Dannesø Appel & Victoria Gabriel Falkencrone Photo: Helle Bjerre Christensen
Every Friday, the delicious smell of home baking wafts through the nooks and crannies of Pumpestation. Because on Fridays, the children bake with Helle in the café's small kitchen. Read on to find out how Helle and the children choose which cakes to bake and how you can join the baking team.
Question: How do you find out what to bake?
"I sometimes ask the kids if there are any special things they want to bake. Otherwise, I search the internet or look in cookery books to find some new ideas. But often what we choose to bake are things like cupcakes, cookies or raspberry nibbles - cakes that are easy to bake together and easy to share with the family at home."
Question: How do you find recipes?
"I do that by looking through the cookbooks I have at home and looking on the internet.
Question: What is it like to bake with children?
"It's a lot of fun and it's really cosy, but it can also be a bit chaotic sometimes. Because a lot of people want to join in. But it's also a lot of fun and I like baking with children."
Q: Is it easy to keep track of the kids?
"Yes, I think it is. As I said, there are a lot of children who want to be involved in baking. So it's never a problem to get anyone to join."
"What can sometimes be a bit of a challenge is that there are so many children who don't fit on the baking team who still come and ask if they can join in and taste the cakes even before they come out of the oven."
"It can be a little bit stressful at times. Because we don't have room for that many people at a time. I usually take six children and divide them into two groups. And then we make a dough twice, so they can help make the dough from scratch."
Question: How do you get involved in baking?
"You do this by signing up on a note that I put up on the notice board in the info centre. I put it up every Thursday at around 3.15pm so that everyone can get down to the club and have a chance to sign up. The first people to sign the list get to join in the baking. To give everyone a chance to join, I've introduced a rule that you can only join every second time."
Question: Who pays for the ingredients?
"It's basically the club that does it. The parents pay a fee for you to come down here, and that money is used to cover various activities, among other things. But beyond that, the club pays for the ingredients."
Q: Does it cost anything to join?
"No, it costs nothing."
Question: When can you join?
"I basically bake with the kids every Friday. And as I said before, you can join in every other time."
Q: Are you allowed to take the cakes home?
"Yes, you do. We always make sure to bake a very large batch so that the children who help bake can take some cakes home with them. We also make sure to bake so many cakes that all the other children - and adults - in the Pump Station get to taste them. Otherwise, it's pure torture for them to walk around smelling the delicious cakes we bake if they're not allowed to taste them."
