easy bake oven

When my sisters and I were little girls, any miniatures that we acquired eventually ended up in the Barbies' possession:  Fish Pond and bubblegum machine and Cracker Jack trinkets; small Christmas decorations; itty-bitty knickknacks.  And my Easy-Bake Oven.
I received the L-shaped turquoise Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas in 1968 (second grade, age 7).  For a while I made the little cakes, but after a while (I assume I ran out of cake mixes), the oven ended up next to the Barbie cases and made a cool kitchen.  I had discovered that the 1960s oven is almost Barbie-sized (the term 1/6 scale didn't exist yet).  The knobs aren't the right size, but the fake burners and doors are!  (Is there such as thing as 1/5.8 scale?)
I don't know whatever happened to my Easy-Bake Oven.  I was at a toy show in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 10 and found an identical one for $5, so of course I bought it.  I took it apart and cleaned it.  Miraculously, one of the infamous lightbulbs still worked!  So I had to replace only the other bulb.
You've probably read that 100-watt incandescent bulbs don't exist anymore and the new twirly ones don't give off enough heat to cook anything.  Thank heavens for Google; I found a blog in which the writer stated that GE Reveal 26-watt bulbs will work, so I bought a set.  I kept the working incandescent bulb in the oven and replaced the non-working one with a 26-watt (100 watt comparable) CFL twirly.
So what did I bake?  I bought a Jiffy blueberry muffin mix and made eight regular muffins in my muffin tins in my regular oven.  I saved a bit of the mix and poured it into one of the Kenner EBO pans.  I lined the pan with foil.  I baked the huge flat muffin for about 15 minutes, and it puffed up like it was supposed to.  The one detail I neglected was that I should have sprayed the foil with Pam because I couldn't get the EBO muffin out!  I ended up spooning it in pieces onto a plate, and placed a pat of butter on top of it and ate it with a fork.  I was concerned about the "muffin" being undercooked, but actually I overbaked it a bit because it was just a bit dry.  Other than that it was edible.
As for being Barbie-sized:  One advantage of being an adult long-time Barbie collector is that you don't have to "make do" with setting up scenes any more; that is, having to use substitutes for items you don't own.  It was soooo nice having a bunch of 1968 Barbies and friends, whom I redressed in--you guessed it--turquoise!  I know turquoise was a 60s color but it never registered with me before that a bunch of Barbie's ensembles from '68 were made of that color.
The girls are in the kitchen during a party, because they are all dressed up.  The dolls are (left to right)  Brunette Talking Barbie in Togetherness; brunette (actually black hair) Twist N Turn Barbie in Knit Hit; Twist N Turn Stacey in Swirly Cue; Twist N Turn Skipper in Posy Party; and Talking Stacey in Zokko!  Talking Barbie has kicked off her shoes and Talking Stacey never did have the boots for the dress.  The purple and green seats came with the Talking Barbie and Stacey that my sister and I received in 1968.  Those two dolls are long gone but we still have the stools!
Everything else in the photo I purchased as an adult collector.  The pots and pans and dishes are from 1979's Campin' Out playset.   Did you realize that the two talking dolls have their ponytails on opposite sides of their heads?  Did you ever notice that when you sit a Barbie down with her knees slightly bent that her feet touch the floor flat?  The TNT Barbie had the worst asymmetrical child-provided haircut I have ever seen, so I attempted to French braid her hair.  She looks a little like Katniss now!
I think that this photo was a "bucket list" type of scene.  I very likely had imagined a similar scene to this as a little girl but did not have the means (that is, the "stuff") to actually create it.  Another fantasy from my childhood list crossed off!