A Problem in the Café

Paula worked in a small café. Many people came from far away to eat her apple cake.

They said it was the best cake in the city.

One morning, Paula went into the kitchen to make her cake.

She put apples, eggs, flour, butter, milk, and sugar in a bowl.

Then she put the cake in the oven to bake.

Soon, the cake was ready. She took it into the café.

It looked delicious.

At lunch, the customers tasted the cake.

“This is not the cake that we usually have. I don’t like it,” said an old man.

“I can’t eat this,” said a woman.

“This cake is terrible,” said a boy.

Paula felt sad. She went into the kitchen and started to cry.

She didn’t know why the customers didn’t like her cake. She had made it the same way she always did.

She looked at the kitchen table. The ingredients from the cake were still there. There were apples, eggs, a bottle of milk, a bag of flour, and some butter… But the sugar was not there.

Then Paula saw the salt. Now, she knew what the problem was. There was salt in the cake, not sugar. Oh no!

She found some sugar and started to make another cake. When it was ready, she tasted it. This time it was perfect.

The next day, she told her customers about her mistake.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “But I have made another cake, and it is perfect. Today there is free cake for everybody.”

The customers tasted the cake. “This is delicious.” They all said.

One man said that it was better than usual.

Paula smiled. Her cake was good, and her customers were happy.

After she closed the café that night, she cleaned the kitchen. She also put the salt on a high shelf, far away from the sugar.

📒 Key vocabulary

• café – a small place to eat and drink
• far – the opposite of near
• flour – white powder used to make bread or cake
• butter – yellow food made from milk
• oven – a machine you cook food in
• bake – put something in the oven to cook
• customers – people who buy things from a shop or restaurant
• terrible – very bad
• ingredients – things (food) you use to make a cake or a dish
• mistake – something you do by accident
• shelf – a flat piece of material you put objects on

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