baking with kids

ready, set, bake

Baking is wonderful and something I love to do.  Even more fun is to bake with kids.  They're so excited and fascinated by the process.  Learning their way around the ingredients, how to measure, the wet and dry combining process; it's a fun edible science and math experiment in the kitchen.

This is one of my baking buddies, Miss A.  She came over the other day with her brother, Mr. C.   I had promised them that the next time they came over we would make cookies so that was our plan.

As it turns out Mr. C's idea of making cookies was to allow his sister and I to do all the baking while he played the part of Official Cookie Tester.  And, might I add, he was rather impatient for those cookies to be done.

Miss A and I got down to business, put on our aprons and got out my "Famous Chocolate Chip Oaties" recipe.  Mr. C. wanted to know why they were famous, had they been on t.v.?  Did someone famous invent them?  I told him that it was a recipe I had created and I simply call them Famous because everyone who eats them really likes them and wants more.  Needless to say he was less than impressed and informed me that unless they've been on t.v. they can't be famous.  Maybe I should send a box to Ellen?

One of the things I love about baking with kids is how curious they are.  Miss A wanted to taste everything.  Of course we decided that the chocolate chips were pretty tasty.  Surprisingly she liked the oatmeal, even raw, and requested a large spoonful of her own to nibble on.  We had two kinds of sugar and she tasted both of them.  Then we got to the baking soda.  Miss A asked if she could taste it.  I was a little surprised and said, "I'm not sure you want to do that."
"Why?" she asked.
"Well," I replied "it's a little bitter tasting and I'm not sure you're going to like it."
"But I want to taste everything." she said.
So I let her taste it.
Her face scrunched up a little and she said, "It's not really bitter but I don't like it."
"Want some chocolate chips to wash that down?" I asked.
Of course the answer was yes.

We wound up making two batches of cookies the regular variety and the peanut butter variety.  The recipe is below and we're sure you're going to enjoy it, just like we did.

Famous Chocolate Chip Oaties

1/2 C butter
1 C evaporated cane juice crystals
1 egg
1/2 t. vanilla
1 C + 2 T white whole wheat flour
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. baking soda
1 C chocolate chips
1 C rolled oats

Preheat oven to 375
Blend together butter and sugar until creamy
Add egg and blend well
Add vanilla and blend well
Mix together flour, salt and baking soda and sift into butter mixture
Blend in chocolate chips
Blend in oats

Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet
Bake 10 minutes
Let sit on baking sheet 2 minutes
Move to rack to finish cooling

For the Peanut Butter variety:
Substitute sucanat for the evaporated cane juice crystals
Add 1/2 C chunky peanut butter