Real Baking Made Simple

When Kenz was three, our baking experiences consisted of pulling up a chair to the kitchen island and giving her a spoon. She would mix up the dry with the wet, then I would take over from there. How fun could that be?

Our new and improved way of baking is to bring a child size table in the kitchen, set a big bowl on it and give her all the ingredients--- one by one.

For a recent test run we made the Vanishing Oatmeal Cookie recipe that can be found under the lid of the round Old-Fashioned Oatmeal box. (The one with that Grandpa guy on it.)

Kenz's first tasks were to:

• Unwrap the softened sticks of butter; a waxy mess.
• Add (less than the recommended amounts) white and brown sugars. (What's the difference in the color, Nana?)
• Begin the creaming process. Start with a spoon and graduate to clean little fingers.
• Squish.

The next steps:

• Crack some eggs while attempting to get most of them in the little bowl. (Brown organics make for interesting discussion) Beat em up good and put em in with the butter and sugar.
• Smell the Vanilla flavoring before adding. Squish.
• Then in a different bowl fluff some flour with baking soda and some cinnamon (the end result tastes better if it gets well---sifted)

Then:

• Put the flour with the butter, sugar, egg stuff, (That's so funny that they call it flour Nana, it doesn't even look like flowers.)
• Squish, squash, squish.
• Now attempt to add three whole cups of oatmeal. One at a time. (Nana, your turn, my hands are too tired)
  

Without all the egg in the mixture, things were a little dry. We fixed it with a little water and made almost all the oats magically--- disappear. Kenz then found the ice cream scoop to measure out some big balls of dough on to the cookie sheets. (Not like the ones we sleep on!) Baking report. The cookies were actually-- tasty! Clean up was a bit extensive, but that's why paper towels were invented.

Good ole-fashioned baking, without the colorful, expensive, prepackaged, hydrogenated and preserved dough that advertises ---So easy.. kids can do it!