Creating Kris ~ a young mom blogs…

KITK: Trying an apple “pat-a-pie”

The recipes I’d had planned to do with the kids in mid-March did not pan out… I still managed to try them out, but did not have any small helpers to do that. At least they got to enjoy the eating part of the Peanut-Butter Thumbprint cookies (a recipe by Anna Olson) and the Chocolate-Orange Molten Lava cakes (in an issue of last year’s Chatelaine magazine).

Our next “Kids in the Kitchen” baking adventure finally happened in early April as my DS helped me put together an apple “pat-a-pie”. This recipe by Today’s Parent involves no rolling out of dough; just some shaping and flattening by hands (whether big or small).

We made the recipe (click here for the original version) with the optional raisins but next time I would say to make it without.

It goes really well with vanilla ice cream, of course, especially if it’s still warm. The next recipe I have planned for our baking activity is some simple cookies and then we’ll see what else we come across!

KITK: Lemon wreath cookies

Another recipe that I wanted to try out this winter was actually a recipe leftover from Christmas (when it was just too busy and overwhelming to get everything done that I’d planned to do!). These Lemon Wreath cookies were in a holiday issue of Martha Stewart Living…

And like the last recipe we tried from MLO, it was a lot of work with not a lot of “totally worth the work” taste. I know we didn’t make our dough rings thin enough (we ended up making only about two-thirds of the amount of cookies the recipe said it would produce), but I’m much less about the exactness and perfection than about getting to the end result and enjoying the experience. And I prefer recipes that cater to that style, especially when baking with the kids in tow!

My 11-year-old did a pretty good job of the extra things that my littler kiddo can’t manage, like rolling the dough and shaping the rings. Must be all that practice with play dough as a kid. We baked the first couple dozen and then stashed the rest in a container for freezing. We created the lemon glaze for the top as called for, but hadn’t been able to find white “non-pareils” at the store, so we had to improvise as far as sprinkles went… I opted for white and yellow stars picked out of the star mix, and Harmony chose to slather on a whole bunch of sprinkles of all sorts of colours (including chocolate sprinkles).

I would say these cookies are a great choice for people who like a lighter taste and not anything “too sweet”. The lemon glaze is the sweetest part; the base cookie is actually not very sweet at all so you could omit the topping if you wanted. The frozen cookies were baked about 1 month after going into the deep freeze and they turned out super well. The dough itself is actually really tasty too, especially when cold.

Here’s a link to the original recipe we followed: Martha Stewart Living magazine’s Lemon Wreath Cookies.

KITK: Trying Heart tarts

I’ve been trying to do baking with the kids as a new “just for us” special activity these days. It fills the void somewhat since there are so many things that I can no longer do with them due to my severe chronic pain, and fills the time as well! It suits our schedule and my limitations very well: we can spend a half hour in the kitchen then have a rest while our creation is baking. The results are enjoyable but also practical; they can often be popped into the kids’ lunch bags for a special snack at school.

As we continue to bake together, I’ll share our results and recipes sources here. I’ve started a new category for these posts: “Kids in the Kitchen”, and I’ll also go back and add the category tag to a couple previous posts about baking with kids, like when we experimented with the Strawberry Roll Cake recipe! Looks like I’ll also have to go back and fix some picture links as well…

So one recipe we tried recently (around Valentine’s Day) was the raspberry-pear heart tarts in the February edition of Martha Stewart Living magazine. They turned out much messier than pictured, but were still very delicious…

before going in the oven

the kids enjoy their treat creations

My overall rating of the recipe was that it was pretty yummy but kind of difficult. Which I kind of expected given the source, but even though they were as hard to make as expected, they weren’t as “deliciously worth it” as expected.

Stay tuned for the results of our next baking adventure… I only wish that I could somehow pass along free samples! Keep an eye out for the category tag Kids in the Kitchen and please pass along any good recipes you recommend!