quarantine – Baking with Belle

Gingerbread House

You know when gingerbread houses are fun to build? Any month that doesn’t end in -cember. December has this next-level pressure to create perfect memories on a strict timeline between parties and demonstrate pin-worthy piping skills and hahaha that just isn’t going to happen with a toddler. BUT, making a spring gingerbread house allows for coconut grass, pink icing, epic collapses, cries of “get me a flying buttress!” and a thrilled toddler who doesn’t know that people usually only do this in winter.

We built this over the course of several days, which allowed us to target different things at different times. We highly recommend that approach, because it’s hard to keep a gingerbread house stable and a kid focused on a target at the same time.

Dough skills:

the usual gross motor and speech targets (see Shortbread)
Early math: visualizing three-dimensional objects and how to construct them, measuring, estimates, patterns

We’ve been watching more UmiZoomi, and the character Geo builds things out of shapes. Before we built the house, we laid some groundwork by drawing houses together – a triangle on top of a square is a house! (Or sometimes a trapezoid on top of a rectangle, if you’re looking at the roof instead of the gable.)

Drawing out the plan — A felt marker or pencil would have worked better than a pen on parchment.

We grabbed a marker and drew it again on the parchment before cutting the dough. If Belle were a year or two older, I would definitely have her draw out a pattern and/or measure the square walls to make sure they fit; as it was, I eyeballed it and asked Belle if they were about the same.

Shortbread windows — Bake extra pieces to eat and accidentally break. (Use a knife to score.)

I cut out two doughs – gingerbread and shortbread – to allow Belle to sort by color and create tile patterns. She wanted to eat them and make patterns with bead-like candies instead. Okay. The shortbread was still handy for windows and doors, which weren’t going to happen by piping.

Shaking Coconut grass — Not sure the high-velocity shake spread the food coloring any faster, but it may have provided Buddy with 30 seconds of entertainment.

Coconut grass skills:

Fine motor: squishing

Buddy did most of the squishing necessary to get a few drops of food coloring spread over some coconut in a ziplock bag.

Squishing coconut — Gratuitous baby rolls, ineffectively poking the coconut.

Decorating skills:

Imaginative/social storytelling: what do the people in the house need? What are they doing?
Fine motor: tweezers, strength, gentle but firm pressure
Cognition: planning, restraint

Tweezing decorations — This looks like what I wanted to happen, but is deceptive. It is a failed attempt to pick up the ball, but a successful attempt at holding the tweezers properly, guiding them near the ball, and understanding the goal.

We set Belle up with a variety of textures and colors and cookie tiles to decorate with, plus tweezers. The tweezers help practice fine motor control and develop hand strength, and were new to her. I demonstrated how I could pick up a red hot out of a 4 oz jam jar using the tweezers, and she demonstrated how she could pick it up using her fingers, then hold it in place with the tweezers, then take it out and eat it. Not quite what I had in mind, but we’re building a new skill, and with practice, she’ll start testing what else she can pick up with the tweezers.

Belle had a firm idea that the decorations needed to sit in the icing, an idea born from her Christmas gingerbread house kit. This knocked down the house a few times – thanks, Papa, for the rebuilding efforts – but actually provided some great proprioceptive feedback on how hard was too hard.

Pushing decorations into icing — FYI: If the icing hasn’t set, pushing down (gently) is less likely to make everything collapse than pushing in.

We spent a lot of time asking Belle “what else should we build for the people?” We ended up with two garden beds (like the ones in our backyard) and a sandbox for the kids, with silver sprinkles to represent the sand toys. Plus paths, lots of paths. Paths of dried strawberry, paths of cookies, paths of icing…because the people needed to walk to their gardens and around the yard.

Squeezing icing — Lots of fine motor strength and accuracy going on here as Belle creates globs of icing. Landscaping, perhaps?

The day after construction, we started again with more storytelling, and a prompt of “Good morning, gingerbread house people! Did you have any dreams? What are you doing today?” (They’re going to a party at Grandma’s house.)

Then we kept eating their house. Ruthless giants, we are.

Equipment:

Mixing bowl
Mixer (with beater and whisk attachments)
Parchment
Plastic wrap
Rolling pin
Knife
2-3 cookie sheets per batch of dough
Piping bags or ziplock bags
Large piece of cardboard (we used a diaper box) and foil to cover it
Small jars or ramekins to contain decorations
Tweezers

Shortbread recipe here: Shortbread

Coconut grass directions:

Put desired amount of coconut in a ziplock bag.
Add food coloring (green, with a little yellow to lighten it up). A few drops should suffice, but add more if not coating the coconut.
Close bag and squish til coated.

Royal icing recipe of your choice – we used less than 2 cups worth and colored it with food coloring.

Gingerbread Recipe (25 min prep, 2 hr-3 day chill, 45 min cut, 15-18 min bake, 45 min cool; yield: about 3 square feet of 1/4″ thick dough):
This recipe comes from Sally’s Baking Addiction. It’s delicious and sturdy, with minimal rise and spread. Butter holds its shape better than margarine; I would not substitute. It will cream much better at room temperature but if it’s the first ingredient you take out and you take your time getting everything else out, it’s not going to break the recipe. 1/4 tsp each of nutmeg and cloves can substitute for the 1/2 tsp allspice.

6 tbsp (3/4 stick) butter, room temperature
3/4 c brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c molasses
2 tbsp water
3 c flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp salt

Cream 6 tbsp butter and 3/4 c brown sugar in a large mixing bowl.
Add 1 egg, 1/2 c molasses, and 2 tbsp water to the bowl and beat until combined.
Add dry ingredients and mix: 3 c flour, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp ginger, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp allspice, 1/4 tsp salt. Dough will be thick and heavy.
Divide into two discs, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least two hours (up to 3 days).
Remove discs from refrigerator at least 10 minutes before rolling out and preheat oven to 350°F. Unwrap and place between two sheets of parchment to roll out to about 1/4″ thick – the dough is very tacky and will stick to the rolling pin.
Cut pieces according to template (not included) or own design and place on cookie sheets lined with parchment. Reroll scraps. Make sure small pieces are on a separate sheet from large pieces, as they will bake faster.
Bake smaller pieces for 12-13 min and larger pieces for 18-20 min. Let cool completely on the sheets, about 45 min.
Prepare to assemble!

Assembly (up to 2 hours):

Base to build on – we used cardboard and foil
Gingerbread, cooled
Shortbread, cooled (if used)
Royal icing, aka the glue
Assorted objects to help stand things up while icing sets
Assorted candies/sprinkles/decorations
Dried fruit/coconut/crushed graham cracker – get a variety of colors and textures

Assemble the house and try not to move it or touch it.
Follow your child’s lead on decorating the house and the yard.
Stop when they lose interest and start again the next day if you care to.

This recipe is part of our coronavirus/Covid-19 quarantine bake-along. See the previous recipe here: Goldfish. See the next recipe here tomorrow.

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April 25, 2020

Baking with Belle2 Comments

Goldfish

If there’s one snack we cannot get enough of in this house, it’s goldfish. J/k, it’s ice cream, but goldfish come in a close second.

Therefore, we’re pretty excited about this savory cheddar cracker dough that comes together in a food processor, rolls out repeatedly without an issue, and holds its shape in the oven.

Rolling out cracker dough — We frequently roll dough out on cutting boards because the cutting board can rotate in ways little shoulders can’t.

Belle (on the cusp of 3) has a really strong interest in letters right now, and we’re working them into virtually every type of play we do: song, puzzles, shadow puppets (we draw “big line down, little curve on the top, little curve on the bottom” for B), reading aloud, play dough (using stamps), drawing, magnets, and of course, baking. Because our play dough stamps give us letters no more than an inch tall, they are perfect tiny cookie cutters for this dough.

Stamping cracker dough — Belle: “Letter Z! Letter Z! I love letter Z!”

I set her up with half the dough rolled out, a rolling pin to roll out a bit more, and a limited set of stamps (like the letters in her name). Then she can stamp to her heart’s content, we can talk about the letters, she can erase by rerolling, I can swap out the available stamps to make sure we have a whole set of scrabble tiles (emphasizing the letters we’ll likely need to spell names together), and together we can pull the stamped crackers out to put on a cookie sheet.

Buddy rolling the rolling pin. — Buddy gets in on the rolling action.

Meanwhile, I don’t love when Buddy (age 1) eats Play Doh the product, but don’t mind him putting this dough in his mouth. They’re both non-toxic; it’s hardly an emergency if he does eat the product, but I prefer he eat different raw flour. Totally logical, I know. Anyway, while Belle rolls and stamps away, Buddy is squishing the pile of scraps. Yay fine motor strength! And they mostly aren’t stealing from each other. Yay sharing!

Letter crackers — This is me ensuring we have enough variety to spell things.

Later, when actually snacking on this, we get to reinforce the letters – spelling things on our plate, doing letter searches (“find an E!”), matching/sorting, and identifying what we have. Although Belle isn’t doing sight words yet, we could easily use these crackers to build on sight word flash cards, or we could separate vowels and consonants, or we could work on phonics and digraphs.

OR, because why not, use the number stamps and do early math.

OR, shapes and do early geometry.

OR, just eat.

Skills worked on:

Early literacy or numeracy
Fine motor: stamping, getting cracker dough out of stamps, squishing
Gross motor: rolling dough
Social-emotional: sharing

Equipment:

Food processor (holding at least 4 cups)
Spatula
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Mini cookie cutters or stamps, or a sharp knife and fork for a Cheez-it look
Rolling pin
2-3 cookie sheets

Recipe (5 min prep, 20+ min cut, 15 min bake; yield: about 140 1″x1/2″ crackers):

This recipe was passed along by a friend, who swears by the kick from the chili and paprika. We are out of paprika, but our quarantine pantry thought chili and garlic was good, dry mustard and garlic was good, and cayenne pepper would work well for a kick. The dough doesn’t rise much or spread, so roll it thin (about 1/8″). Whole wheat flour should work too!

8 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 stick (4 tbsp) butter, cubed
1 c flour
A scant tsp salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp chili powder (or to taste)
1 tsp paprika (or to taste)
2 tbsp water

In a food processor, add 8 oz shredded cheese, 4 tbsp cubed butter, 1 c flour, a scant tsp salt, 1 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tsp chili powder, and 1 tsp paprika.
Pulse together until uniform, then add 2 tbsp of water and pulse again. Dough will stick together.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Roll out and cut. Reroll scraps indefinitely.
Place crackers on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake 15 min at 350°F.
Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

This recipe is part of our coronavirus/Covid-19 quarantine bake-along. See the previous recipe here: Pumpkin Bread. See the next recipe here: Gingerbread House.

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April 20, 2020April 25, 2020

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Pumpkin Bread

This bake was a set up for choices: a or b? Pumpkin bread or peanut butter cookies? Eggs first or oil? You do it or me? One big pan or two little pans? With a recipe that is a two part dump recipe (dump wet and mix, dump dry and mix), almost any choice works. Meanwhile, using the “a or b?” construction encourages a child to reply with longer utterances that recast the question into a sentence, instead of “yes/no.” Six months ago, if I asked, “Belle, do you want to crack eggs first or pour oil?” she would have said “eggs!” Three months ago, “I crack eggs first!” Now, “I want to crack eggs first, I no want to crack eggs, I’m a little bit scared, I want you crack eggs!”

Scraping pumpkin into the bowl — When I let her stabilize the can against the bowl, rather than forcing her to accept my help, there were actually fewer pumpkin splatters.

Once finished with option A, I can ask Belle what else we need to do, working on her recall of option B. If she resists that choice again, I can offer “b or c?”

Meanwhile, offering choices that have no wrong answers builds independence and a positive emotional bond between caregiver and child – especially since Belle frequently hears me say “no!” as we try to keep certain toys away from Buddy.

Greasing the pan — I actually don’t preheat til Belle starts greasing the pan – the timing works out almost perfectly.

Belle’s confidence continues to grow in the kitchen, and she’s started taking over certain tasks completely independently. Since it doesn’t really matter if there’s extra Crisco greasing the pan, Belle gets the pan, the giant jar of Crisco, and the paper towel – and I walk away until she tells me she’s done, at which point I do a quality check.

Like all good things, this totally backfires when she wants to then scoop potent spices like cloves out of the bottom of a narrow necked jar without help but what can you do? I let her splatter pumpkin and tip cloves, but kept the actual spice scooping out of her reach (because quarantine grocery shopping is a bit hit or miss).

Scraping into pans — Now taking suggestions on how to practice the wrist movements without holding a three pound, batter-filled weight at the end of my arm.

The scraping – can to bowl, bowl to pan – was tricky for Belle, since it engages at least two motions: a firm rotational movement along the side of the container and a lighter pulling movement toward the edge. Too much force while pulling can splatter, while too little force can leave batter in the bowl. To the tune of “I want to do it mineself!” I loosened the pumpkin and batter, held the heavy bowl (but not the light can), and let Belle try her best. Periodically, I’d scrape down the sides and give her back the spatula – practice makes perfect, right?

Buddy scraping — Buddy, age 1, wants to bake too.

Meanwhile, Buddy stayed out of trouble by eating lunch, then getting to play with the mixing bowl and measuring cup afterwards.

Skills targeted:

Cognition: a/b choices
Language: expanding sentences
Social-emotional: independence, positive caretaker bonding
Manual strength and coordination: can opener, scraping
Fine motor: spice scooping

Equipment:

Mixing bowl
Mixer
Spatula
Can opener
Small bowl for cracking eggs
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
3 loaf pans, 1 loaf pan and 1 9×9 pan, or 1 9×13 pan

Recipe (30 min prep, 45-50 min bake, yield: 3 loaves or 1 loaf and 1 9×9 pan)

This recipe is based off the Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread found on Allrecipes, though we cut the sugar by half on our first attempt. We find that 1 1/2 cups of sugar makes a delicious sweet bread, and that 1 cup of sugar makes it slightly less flavorful. We’ll probably continue to tinker with the sugar and spice content to boost flavor while reducing sugar – keep an eye out for a molasses variation – but this is unlikely to have a sugar-free version (unless it is all sugar substitutes). We love it because it uses an entire can of pumpkin, and because the bread lasts for more than a day in our house. It could probably be muffins but we haven’t tested the timing on that yet.

1 15 oz can pumpkin purée
4 eggs
1 c vegetable oil
2/3 c water
1-1 1/2 c sugar
3 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Add to a large mixing bowl: 1 can pumpkin purée, 4 eggs, 1 c vegetable oil, 2/3 c water, and 1 c sugar. Add an additional 1/2 c sugar for more flavor. Mix until oil is fully incorporated, about 3 minutes.
Add dry ingredients: 3 1/2 c flour, 2 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cloves, and 1/2 tsp ginger. Mix until fully incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
Grease pans well, then pour batter into pans. Smooth the top with a spatula.
Bake 45-50 minutes, or until the top has cracked and a toothpick inserted comes out dry. Store in an airtight container and refrigerate for several days to keep from drying out.

This recipe is part of our coronavirus/Covid-19 quarantine bake-along. See the previous recipe here: Mac & Cheese. See the next recipe here tomorrow.

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April 19, 2020April 19, 2020

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Mac & Cheese

Quarantine requires comfort food, right? And plus also pasta is currently Belle’s “favorite treat” (she says, as she demands it daily) and I’m determined to trick her into eating something on it. First, mac & cheese, next, sneak some spinach in there, or make chili mac. Whatever it is, I want to eat it too.

Belle has also been watching a lot of UmiZoomi, and there’s a character on the show named Millie, who has a pattern dress. This recipe targets patterns. Pattern power!

Pouring pasta — In case you were wondering, this technique ensures dry pasta on the floor.

But first, a word on making the pasta. The steps according to Belle are: water in the pot, add a little bit of magic (heat), not green magic (range hood fan and its green operating light), add pasta, don’t burn yourself mama, stir, taste, drain. The green magic has to turn on when Belle pours the pasta in and some falls under the electric burner (yikes! Let’s not char dried pasta), which means in order to follow her directions, I have to move the pot between her and the burner before she adds the pasta. Likewise, we add a little bit of magic but not high heat because we don’t want things to boil over.

Magic is a kind of silly word to use for heat, but by using it, we’re connecting to a particular set of ideas in Belle’s mind, much like using a keyword from a nursery rhyme will get her to recite the entire thing. This magic is a little bit good – it can cook the pasta – and a little bit bad – it can hurt me if I touch it. I have to be careful not to bump the pot, or touch the burner, or I could burn myself. I need to hold the pot handle with my helping hand, and stir the pot with my spoon hand, so it doesn’t tip over and hurt me. Buddy doesn’t understand, so if he tries to climb the tower, I need to get help so he doesn’t touch the magic burner.

Hey, if we have to make pasta daily, we might as well work on nailing down burner safety through repetition.

Knife skills — Belle, where do we hold the knife?

We use a similar story for the knife: I hold the black handle, with the point out and the sharp side down. I use my helping hand to hold the cheese, with my fingers far away. I ask for help if it’s too hard to cut, or if it’s too small.

Cheddar cheese is too hard to cut alone, so mama and Belle cut together.

Mac and cheese layering — I tried to challenge Belle to fit more pieces in, but she ate the cheese instead. Then gave some to Buddy. We recommend extra for snacking.

Now, back to patterns. This day, we’d spent Buddy’s naptime stringing beads onto pipecleaners to get Belle’s head in the pattern game. Layering the 4 ingredients makes an ABCDABCD pattern, or an ABCABC pattern if you pretend the bread crumbs and pepper are one ingredient. She got it on the third set and wanted to keep going, which means doubling the recipe or using a smaller casserole dish probably would have helped us practice. Or just make it again, because in quarantine, we need comfort food!

Skills worked on:

Early math: patterns (ABCABC)
Kitchen safety: burners
Knife skills
Recall: social stories

Equipment:

Pot
Strainer
Casserole dish
Cutting board
Knife
Slotted spoon

Recipe (35 min prep, 45 min bake, yield: 4 entree servings or 8 side servings)

This is a childhood recipe from my mom, and very flexible to what you have in the pantry. If you don’t have enough milk, cream or reserved pasta water will work, but you need the liquid to keep the pasta from drying out or burning, and it creates a gooey sauce. If I were to add meat or veg in, it would be the bottom layer.

1 box of pasta (elbow, shells, or whatever you have that’s not noodle-y)
8-12 oz cheese (sharp cheddar, or whatever sounds good)
1/2-3/4 c bread crumbs (Italian, or panko, or crushed croutons, or whatever stale and seasoned bread you can find and crush finely)
Salt and pepper (optional)
1/2-3/4 c milk

Prepare box of pasta in salted water; drain.
Cut 8-12 oz cheese into slices about 1/8″ thick (or shred).
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Layer in the casserole dish: pasta to cover the bottom of the dish (1/4 to 1/3 of the pasta). Arrange cheese to cover the pasta – some gaps are okay. Shake about 1/4 of the bread crumbs (2-3 tbsp) over the cheese, then grind some pepper (optional) over that. Continue to layer pasta, cheese, and bread crumbs/pepper until you run out or reach the top of the dish (3-4 layers).
Add enough milk to go 1/2-2/3 of the way up the side of the dish.
Bake 45 min in 350° oven, or until cheese looks melted and slightly bubbly, and no liquid remains. Serve immediately.

This recipe is part of our coronavirus/Covid-19 quarantine bake-along. See the previous recipe here: Shortbread. See the next recipe here: Pumpkin Bread.

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April 17, 2020April 19, 2020

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Shortbread

A basic shortbread is butter creamed with sugar, plus a bit of salt, plus flour.

Variations include powdered sugar vs granulated sugar, salted butter and no salt vs unsalted butter and some salt, and various mix-ins: toasted nuts, tea leaves, herbs (lavender does well), coconut, citrus zest, extracts (vanilla is very popular). In a pinch, margarine or shortening can substitute in, though don’t expect the cookie to hold its shape if you do so. In your quarantine pantry, assume anything that sounds good will work.

Shortbread also can be pressed into a pan (about 1/4″-1/2″ thick), rolled into a log and sliced, or rolled out for cookie cutters.

It’s hard to go wrong.

Our first challenge is to figure out what add-ins we want to use. I sometimes pick for us because I need to use an ingredient up, and sometimes lay out the options for Belle to choose. Try not to pick more than one per category (extracts, tea, nuts, zest, coconut, herbs). Talk about seasonings that go together – if it grows together, it goes together, right? Coconut and lime grow in the same climate – sounds delicious. Lemon and lavender are all over the Mediterranean – perfect. Walnuts and lime? Not so much.

Rubbing butter — Belle opted to rub the butter and flour together – so I opted to discuss sensory vocabulary.

Our second challenge is to gather our ingredients and get them ready. Mise en place is so important in toddler baking, because you need to switch to the next step of the recipe quickly! (As a side note, it can be equally important to whisk away the rest of the vanilla before it all gets dumped in!)

Please note that even Papa cannot control Belle’s flour exuberance.

Our third challenge is to bake!

As we bake, we practice pragmatic language and storytelling. We want Belle to indicate when she needs a break (“I need wash my hands! Help me!”). We want to follow multi-step directions, like “unwrap the butter and put it in the bowl, then tell me you’re done.” We want to flip “I don’t want to” into “okay, tell me how to” that will use “first, next, then, last.” We want to have the child explain what they’re doing (“I putting butter in bowl!”), then expand on that with, “yes, you’re putting the butter in the bowl so we can mix it with the sugar. What ingredient do you think we’ll need next?” I sometimes recap what we’ve already done before I move onto the next step, to model storytelling.

We can also work on specific vocabulary that connects to the recipe.

The ingredients
Sensory words: chilly, sticky, dusty, heavy, light
Active words: tip, scoop, pour, mix
Wh- questions/answers: Belle often answers How questions with “because it’s so beautiful” (or similar non sequitor), because How doesn’t fully register until after 36 months. These all work though: Where does the butter go? What ingredient is next? Which spatula should we use? When do the cookies come out of the oven?
Tools: spatula, “mine new red whisk,” cookie cutter shapes.

Words like spatula have the added benefit of practicing word-initial consonant clusters – Belle often replaces these with an /f/ sound, making spatula into “fatula.” I can repeat it back to her with correct pronunciation, ask her to repeat, or just go about my business knowing that it’s age appropriate and that I’ll be better prepared to guess the next f-word-that’s-not-actually-a-word. “Fing? Spring? Ah, probably thing?”

Honey shortbread — This version substituted some honey in for sugar and used cookie cutters – though clearly Belle had abandoned the project for tablet time by this point.

Skills worked on:

Recall/storytelling
Knife skills
Vocabulary
Pronunciation: consonant clusters
Pragmatic language

Equipment:

Pan (9×9 or 9×13, or 2 8-9″ rounds) or cookie sheets
Knife or cookie cutters
Rolling pin (optional)

Shortbread log — With a log of shortbread dough, we can practice knife skills

Recipe (30 min prep, 20 min bake, yield ~40 2″ cookies):

2 sticks (1 c) butter
1 c sugar (or powdered sugar)
1 tsp salt
2 c flour
Optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: up to 2 tbsp citrus zest (roughly 1 lemon)
Optional: up to 3/4 c toasted nuts, broken into peanut-size pieces, or coconut
Optional: up to 2 tbsp loose tea leaves (about 5 tea bags)
Optional: 1 tsp other herbs/spices (like lavender)

Optional, if using nuts or coconut: Break nuts down and spread nuts/coconut on a cookie sheet. Toast for about 5 min in a 350°F oven, til aroma is just coming through.
Cream together until fluffy 2 sticks of butter and 1 cup of sugar.
Optional: add 1 tsp vanilla extract and up to 2 tbsp zest and mix.
Whisk together 2 c flour, 1 tsp salt, and any additional coconut or spices in a separate bowl, then mix it into the creamed butter.
Optional: add nuts in, and mix.
If pressing into a pan, line the pan with parchment or grease it heavily. Press dough into pan evenly (about 1/4-1/2″ deep). Otherwise: collect dough into a disc or a log, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 min and up to 24 hours.
Log: unwrap and slice onto cookie sheet, about 1/4″ thick.
Disc: roll out on a floured surface til about 1/4″ thick. Use cookie cutters to shape cookies and place on cookie sheet.
Bake in 350° oven for 20 min (longer if it’s thicker). Cookie should be firm to crisp on top, slightly toasty on bottom (or edge in a pan). Let cool for 2-3 min on sheet then remove to wire rack to cool completely. In pan, let cool 10 min, then use a knife to cut into individual cookies. Let cool completely before removing from pan.

This recipe is part of our coronavirus/Covid-19 quarantine bake-along. See the previous recipe here: Snickerdoodles. See the next recipe here: Mac & Cheese.

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April 15, 2020April 17, 2020

Baking with Belle3 Comments

Snickerdoodles

Since we made snickerdoodles last week, Belle has called all cookie dough or play dough balls snickerdoodles – as in “I made a snickerdoodles” – which works for me. Keep rolling those balls, kiddo, and working that estimation and pincer grasp to grab a consistent amount of dough, then using that manual coordination to roll it into a sphere, then using that shape language to distinguish between a 2D circle, a 3D ball, and a 3D cube.

Flour fingers — Scoop optional: flour is still really fun to poke and prod and pick up with fingers.

The hands on rolling was actually our main target with this recipe. I was hoping Belle would take charge of grabbing the dough and rolling it, because I’m interested in having her match sizes right now. Instead, she directed me to roll the balls, while she dipped them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture and lined them up on the cookie sheet.

Pouring into bowl — Belle’s strength and coordination has improved a lot and she consistently pours everything into the mixing bowl without spilling.

So I pivoted and talked about how we could build letters with big lines and little lines (I have some experience with the Handwriting without Tears curriculum, which gives children half a dozen different ways to create the shape of a letter without necessarily using a writing utensil) and we built most of an A with snickerdoodles before Belle started filling in the triangle.

Snickerdoodles balls arranged as letter A — Alas, Belle never got the little line across in letter A.

Lastly, we work on lot on telling the story of baking: what do we need and what should we do with it? What are the ‘structions? What did we do, and then what, and then what? We recap this on video, on FaceTime with Grammie, while serving Papa our cookies, all to practice recall and sequencing. Eventually, we’ll draw some stories out, but at still not 3, that’s too advanced for Belle.

Skills worked on:

Fine motor dexterity and coordination: rolling
Following directions
Alphabet
3D shapes and shape language
Estimation
Cognition: restraint/executive function
Recall/storytelling

Equipment needed:

Mixing bowl
Mixer
Small bowls for cracking eggs and topping
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Cookie sheets

Recipe (30 min prep, 25 min bake, yield: 4 dozen):

This recipe came straight from Grammie’s kitchen, with one slight change: toddlers aren’t great at rolling in sugar mixtures, and snickerdoodles need that cinnamon, so we’ve added some in the dough.

2 sticks (1 c) butter or margarine, room temperature
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 c flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
Topping: 3 tbsp sugar, or more
Topping: 3 tbsp cinnamon, or more

Preheat oven to 350°.
In a large mixing bowl, beat together 2 sticks butter, 1 1/2 c sugar, and 2 eggs.
Add 2 3/4 c flour, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 tsp cinnamon, and mix together into a dough.
Mix 3 tbsp of sugar and 3 tbsp of cinnamon in a small bowl.
Roll into balls about 1″ in diameter, then roll in the cinnamon-sugar and place on 3-4 cookie sheets. Cookies will spread to about 3″ diameter, slightly more with margarine.
Bake 12-15 min at 350°, or until a gentle tap doesn’t dent the cookie. Cool on a wire rack.
Store in an airtight container up to a week.

This recipe is part of our coronavirus/Covid-19 quarantine bake-along. See the previous recipe here: Pretzels. See the next recipe here: Shortbread.

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April 14, 2020April 15, 2020

Baking with BelleLeave a comment