In the kitchen this past week I enjoyed several occasions of cooking/baking with the children. Aside from their helping with meal preparations {be it breakfast, lunch or dinner}, I thought we needed more baking time together. I have
this magazine I love with lots of great and simple cookie recipes, so I pulled it out and started thumbing through it. I found two recipes to make with the children…lovely weather for baking and holidays are just around the corner, so what better time to start?!
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| Brother and sister working together... |
The first cookie recipe was for
Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies. We added a little twist to the recipe to include butterscotch chips and mini-chocolate chips. This was a simple recipe and one which yielded over 4 dozen cookies…plenty to share with others! {I have been trying to encourage my children to be thoughtful of doing ‘simple acts of kindness’ and sharing cookies was one way they decided to do that.}
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| Fresh rolled oats, mini-chocolate chips and butterscotch chips...a lovely combination! |
These were a chewy sweet cookie and the added butterscotch/mini-chocolate chip morsels only made them better. I choose to use ¾ c of butterscotch morsels and ½ c of mini semi-sweet chocolate chip morsels, adding them to the end of the recipe.
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| 1" rounded scoop of cookie dough placed on a seasoned baking stone...ready to bake |
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| After baking, these chewy somewhat healthy {minus the butter, sugar and baking chips...wink} were set to cool before bagging to give some away. Yum! |
Of course, baking with little ones is not always easy. How do we do it with four children that happen to be five years or younger? Well, naptime is a GREAT time to bake with the older children...that is if all the little ones cooperate. One this occasion, Carolyne decided to forgo the afternoon napping. Between Austin, Logan, Alyssa and I we rotated holding, loving and rocking her.
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| Content to be in sister's arms...Alyssa relaxing after a session of rocking. Our Miss Carolyne had a difficult afternoon with belly bubbles which did affect her napping and was one reason for having a cookie baking session. ;-) |
The second cookie recipe we made was with the young lady who is coming over once a week to help with little ones. It was a simple, fun autumn themed cookie recipe…
Chocolate Nut Acorns. These cookies look like little acorns and fit right in with our beloved season of autumn...trying to bring fall to Florida! Our mother’s helper assisted Graham and Alyssa with following the recipe as they each took turns adding the ingredients. She was gracious enough to photograph them during this baking lesson so we could add photos to this post…thank you Shannon.
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| Using the Pampered Chef food chopper makes chopping the almonds a breeze...and keeps little fingers safe {with supervision, of course}. |
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| Shaping the cookies was very forgiving...the children made 1" balls with the cookie scooper, then rolled them slightly to make them oblong. A little flattening when placed on the baking stone and in the oven to bake. Each one different...just like an acorn. |
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| Logan and I did the dipping. A tip: we placed two cookies bottom to bottom and dipped one end into the melted chocolate. See next picture for why... |
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| Then the dipped cookie was dipped into the chopped nuts. When satisified with nut coverage, we removed the cookies and separated them. The bottoms were chocolate/nut free making it easy to place them on the wax paper lined cooling rack...once cooled, the cookies were easy to remove with little mess. |
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| Our "sweet" little chocolate nut acorn cookies...delicious! |
Logan and I finished the baking time by doing the dipping portion of the cookie. I chose to use chopped almonds for the nut {a bit healthier than other nut choices} and they almost made the cookies have a shortbread flavor. Delicious and fun to make! A few of these were sent to another family to bring some cheer to their week and let them know we were thinking about them.
Baking season is really right around the corner, so this weekend Austin and I stocked up on our baking supplies…to try to avoid the crowds when that time kicks into full swing. My food budget was doubled this week, but I should be all set for lots of baking days these next couple of months. I hope to select a few more cookie recipes to try with the children and then narrow down to a handful of favorites for gift giving this year. If at all possible and Lord willing, maybe we can bake and freeze to keep the holidays less stressful…we’ll see how life with a newborn and littles dictate our baking times. Do you have any kid-friendly, fun, delicious, SIMPLE cookie recipes you like? Feel free to leave a comment and share! I’d love to visit and glean from your suggestions…If you would like to read more of our upcoming kitchen baking times and see how some of our other recipes come out, become one of "Those Encouraged" on the right sidebar or subscribe to receive posts via email at the bottom of the blog. Look for an upcoming giveaway...autumn is an inspiring time to share thanks...
Until next time...
Blessings and Happy Baking ~
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