Sure, Mom would love to go out for brunch on Mother's Day. But consider the gratification she would feel sitting down to a meal that Dad and the kids had produced themselves. Her heart would melt at the sight of little fingers extracting warm corn muffins from flowerpots, or slightly older hands pulling a warm spinach and artichoke custard and maple-glazed bacon from the oven.
Those muffins — and a wonderfully moist sour cream cake — take on a fresh, whimsical shape when you bake them in clean, new, unglazed terra-cotta flowerpots. Just line the pots with cooking parchment (sold in supermarkets near waxed paper), and both muffins and cake pop out with ease.
The muffins, and the rest of our simple menu, are designed to tickle the kids and be realistic for Dad — cooking expert or kitchen rookie — to tackle as supervisor. Every dish can be started, or prepared completely, up to a day ahead of time. And the menu serves eight, so you can invite Grandpa and Grandma to see the children turn into minichefs, and Mom into queen for a day.
COUNTDOWN Up to 1 day ahead: Bake muffins, mix custard, prebake bacon, bake cake.
Up to 2 hours ahead: Prepare blueberries with oranges.
About 1 hour ahead: Bake precooked bacon.
About 40 minutes ahead: Bake custard.
About 10 minutes ahead: Reheat muffins, and make tea or coffee.
