Not Quite Fit For Tasty Tuesday...

The wee ones and I enjoy our baking, and it's fascinating to watch them become enthralled in all aspects of it (with the exception of the time each item spends in the oven, but I do vaguely remember making cookie dough and then running off leaving my poor mom to scoop out all the cookies and bake them, returning only in time to sample the wares).

Whenever we bake, the wee ones want to know what the next ingredient is. They want to smell it and touch it and taste it. And for the most part I let them.

They want to put the ingredients in by themselves, and for the most part, I let them do that, as well. Mister Man is actually getting fairly proficient in scooping out level cups of ingredients.

They're both getting pretty good at cracking eggs, as well. I would never have let them try, but a cooking class I took once had a teacher who kept insisting that she could teach four year olds to crack eggs with one hand. And to be honest, the wee ones generally do a pretty good job with the eggs. They're more prone to become nervous that they're going to spill the egg and have me take over than they are to get shell into the batter.



This of course, is the exception. Little Miss actually cracked the egg and had it break apart and land almost entirely on the counter. For this instance -- and for this instance only -- I used my hand to scrape it off my clean counter (I clean the counter with wipes before and after every cooking and baking endeavor as a matter of course) and dumped it into the bowl.



After we had the dough all mixed up, we had to roll it out. This is generally a job that I do, but the wee ones are becoming more and more adept at using the rolling pin. While I finish things off and make them smooth, they're doing a pretty good job of making it flat.

And for this recipe, we had to roll the dough, use the cookie cutter, roll out more dough, use the cookie cutter, and repeat. It only took one rerolling of the dough before the wee ones were finished with it, and I finished rolling and cutting all 80-some shapes.

And to think I'd originally considered doubling the recipe.



The finished product was proclaimed wonderful to eat by the wee ones, and they even convinced my mom and my sister to try them (they liked the biscuits, as well). Fortunately, we were able to save the majority of the treats for the three dogs currently staying at my parents' house.

And yes, the recipe is completely edible for humans. It's basically a peanut butter and oatmeal cookie. I don't like peanut butter (I know, weird, right?), but everyone who tried to cookies enjoyed them. And the dogs? They gobbled them up!

Good Ideas Gone Bad

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My four pack of movie tickets and free cereal ends tomorrow and so far has only seven entries (what do you not like going to the movies?) Enter here.

Do you shop at the LOFT? $200 awaits you here.

Are you more of a cash kind of person? Enter for a $200 Visa gift card here.

***

Stop me when you figure out where I went wrong today.

I agreed to watch a friends two sons this afternoon for a couple hours after church today (no, this is a good thing), beginning at noon.

It turns out that the wee ones had Christmas pageant practice today after church. Church ends at 11:30 or so. The practice I found out was going to be "about forty-five minutes or so." I did not bring food for them to eat lunch. (Sadly, this is not where I went wrong either.)

At ten to twelve, my friend called to confirm that we were still at church and dropped off her boys. I was expecting ten more minutes of pageant practice, and they can be entertained for that long, surely. For ten minutes? No problem. Unfortunately, it was almost forty more minutes of practice. And the wee ones still hadn't eaten lunch. (I'm starting to have a few regrets, but this isn't where I went wrong.)

When we got to our house at 1:45, I discovered that the two boys had eaten lunch already, so they just wanted to play. You can imagine how well lunch went over with Mister Man and Little Miss while their friends are calling to them and trying to get them to play. Little Miss sat right down and ate something, and I contented myself with Mister Man eating two bites of a sandwich and drinking his milk. Nope, still not where I went wrong.

Yesterday, I started baking Christmas cookies. I have to bring in cookies to Mister Man's school twice next week, and I volunteered to be the "nice" mom bringing in not only the nut free cookies (required) but also the egg free (an allergy in Mister Man's class) and dairy free (an allergy in the school in general) cookies. Those cookies were quickly and easily made yesterday, but by the time I finished those, the wee one and I were done baking for the day. The sugar cookie dough sitting in the fridge was going to stay there overnight.

So I decided that today would be a good day to finish the cookies and that the boys could help me. I rolled out the dough, and I showed them the selection of cookie cutters. Surprisingly, this wasn't too painful.

One of the boys asked if he could have a taste of the dough. I agreed and gave him a small sliver. I then spent the next hour and a half chasing after him and making him put pieces of dough down. This was the beginning of the end.

Since they were cut out sugar cookies, I figured we had to decorate them. I was envisioning using my sugar crystals of various colors with the stocking being sprinkled gently with red for the bottom and left clean on top. The snowflake would be perfect sprinkled in blue, while the star would look great in red -- and so on.

Apparently it's been awhile since I've decorated with children. The pile of yellow sugar on one cookie wasn't a huge issue, as I easily spread it around and calmly explained that you couldn't use that much sugar on a single cookie.

When they argued over the sugar and grabbed at the sugar the others had, smashing an elbow into a couple cookies along the way, I quickly devised a color sharing system -- at my call, they would each rotate the sprinkles to the right.

When Mister Man asked to use the new red sprinkles, I helped him open them. At that point, I turned around to do something -- stupidly, I'll admit. I heard the oh no! as I turned back around. Apparently the red sprinkles have very large holes in the top, and a pile of red sprinkles larger than the cookie now lay atop a poor snowman. I took a deep breath and quickly grabbed the still pouring sprinkle container then began trying to scrape up some of the teensy tiny grains of sugar. Muttering under my breath, I gave up.

The first tray done -- albeit over decorated -- I placed into the oven, and we started on the second tray. I placed the red sprinkles out of the way so no one would be tempted, and I contentedly monitored the over sugaring of the cookies. As the timer went off and I turned around to check the cookies in the oven, I really should have known better. One of the boys had opened the red container, and almost half the sprinkles in the bottle were now covering a reindeer and a bell. At least the boy had the good sense to right the bottle and stop pouring after the initial mishap.

I tried tilting the tray to better capture the excess sprinkles, which only worked minimally as both of the boys were putting their fingers in the sprinkles and gobbling the sugar as quickly as they could. My admonitions were met only with sheepish grins and more reaching. I checked the clock to see how long before I headed out for my Christmas party tonight (and by my, I mean me and other moms with no children present).

We continued decorating the cookies, and I continued fending off the boys from the stealing of dough and sugar. Somehow, I don't lose this battle when it's the wee ones, but these boys are more persistent. They also began begging to eat a cookie. I promised everyone could have a cookie once we got the second sheet out of the oven and they'd cooled somewhat (with Little Miss getting one of the strawberry thumbprint dairy free, egg free, nut free but surprisingly not taste free cookies we'd made yesterday).

As the cookies were ready, I placed a cookie for each child onto a plate and made sure they sat at the kitchen table to eat. I continued to work on rolling out the dough and finishing up the cookies. When I next looked up, the children had all left the table, and I can only pray that they washed -- or at least licked off -- their hands before going to play in the rooms with carpet and other light colored objects.

This is about when I realized that over sugared cookies have a bigger problem than just wasting the sugar. About three-quarters of the sugar that had been in the dispensers now lay strewn about not only the kitchen table but on the floor all around the table as far as the eye could see. I sighed and was mildly grateful that this wasn't summer and therefore no ants would smell the sugar that I'd missed, knowing it would take me several rounds of sweeping and mopping to capture all the errant grains.

They did all have fun, and I sent the boys on their merry way not long after with a big plate of the cookies they'd helped me make. I surveyed my kitchen and sighed.

Moral of the story? Making cookies with children isn't a bad thing. However, next time we're going with icing. Sugar is best left in the hands of experts.

And now? I have seven minutes before I need to be at a party that has only adults, some adult beverages and a basement full of delectable goodies. I'm feeling better already.

Happy Half Birthday, Mister Man!

Ok, so his half birthday was April 11. And today's the 23rd. I am notoriously horrible at getting pictures from my camera to this computer, and this definitely needs pictures. So, yes, this is over a week late.

Most people and families celebrate birthdays – with the exception of my husband’s family, but I won’t get into that today. In my family, we always celebrated half birthdays, too, and it’s a tradition that lives on today.

For the half birthday, there are certain rules we follow. First, the half birthday child (my husband refuses to acknowledge half birthdays for me and isn’t into it for himself either) gets to choose whatever he or she wants to eat for dinner. Second, there are cupcakes to celebrate. For “real” birthdays, we do full cakes, but half birthdays get cupcakes – also of the birthday child’s choosing. Lastly, the child must blow out candles, including a smaller candle to represent the half year.

This year, Mister Man decided that he wanted to have sausage for dinner. When I suggested he might want something else, he decided to add sausage, too. I kindly suggested maybe something not in the meat family. And he came up with French toast. This is exactly what he had for his real birthday back in October, so apparently creativity in food choices is a skill that develops a bit later in life!

He then had to choose his cupcake. At first he wanted chocolate cherry – not a big surprise since Daddy’s favorite cake is the cherry chip that came from a box that his mom made a couple times for him growing up. I love to bake, and my cakes never come from a box, so I reinvented cherry chip to my own liking a few years ago. Mister Man has chosen that for his birthday cake and cupcakes every year since Daddy introduced him to it. Then he changed his mind and wanted a chocolate cupcake with cherries in it. Ok, I can do that, too. Then he finally settled on just chocolate cupcakes. Okie-dokie!

Me, being the sweet and giving mom that I am, did not try to talk him into a different dinner or cupcake. Ok, I did, but I failed. I don’t think I’m the most picky eater, but for whatever reason, I don’t like French toast, sausage or chocolate cakes (except for my molten chocolate cakes, but those are in a separate category). Since he had made his choice, I simply got to eat a different dinner and skip dessert. Fortunately, even when I don’t like certain foods, I can still cook them well – or so my family tells me.

Once Mister Man was on the bus, Little Miss and I set to work making the cupcakes. Not surprisingly, she wanted to help me make them. It’s actually sort of fun to watch her excitement as she pulls the stool around the island to wherever she thinks she’ll have the best vantage point. She helped me put in all the ingredients, and of course we had to smell most of them. Trying to explain to a two year old why flour doesn’t smell like flowers was probably the most difficult part of the baking process.

As I started to put the cupcakes into their molds, Little Miss watched intently. She saw how I dipped a 1/3 cup measure into the batter and carefully dripped it into the cup. As I was concentrating on this, she – unbeknownst to me – picked up her own cup measure and dipped it into the batter. She, being the girl she is, chose the 1 cup measure. However, she had no interest in filling the cupcake molds. As I looked up, I saw her drinking the batter from the cup.

Me: Stop! Freeze! What are you doing? (giggle, giggle, snicker)
Little Miss: Mommy, I’m eating.
Me: I can see that. Do not put that back into the bowl, do you understand?
Little Miss: Yes, Mommy. This is yummy. Do you want some? (As she holds it out for me)
Me: I’m good thanks. No more dipping though.


I finished filling the cups and placed them in the oven. The fun now begins – the bowl has to be cleaned, as do the beaters. I told her she couldn’t dip anymore, you notice, I didn’t tell her that she couldn’t have any more of the batter. She licked off the spatula and one beater. As I removed the first beater, Little Miss asked if she could save the other beater for Mister Man. Awwww… And yes, he did get the beater when he got off the bus. I had to talk her into not carrying it outside for him, but she finally acquiesced.

Before we got to that point, of course. There was a bit of a mess on Little Miss' face to clean up. Fortunately, she knows how to do that, too. And nope, I can't help.

I did have a few issues once the cupcakes were finished baking, however. When I bake, I bake for flavor not presentation. Somewhere down the road, my goal is to take classes to learn to decorate cakes, etc but for now I tend to leave the cakes in the pan and frost from there or do minimal decorating (especially after my 4 layer disaster 5 years ago for my husband’s birthday at the ball field). For these cupcakes, I debated what to do.

I finally decided that powdered sugar was the way to go. I’m better off not hiding it and going with the flow – I called them my see-saw cupcakes.

For dinner, my parents joined us, of course. What’s a half birthday celebration without family, after all? For the French toast, I experimented with adding orange zest this time, and fortunately it went over well with all involved. I can’t attest to its flavor, but all the pieces were eaten.

And fortunately, no comments were made on the cupcakes’ appearance, but that may be because everyone’s mouths were full.



My baby is 4 ½. *sigh*