Food Friday: Blueberry Surprise

Here's the thing. I knew The Kid was going to want to have a hand in the cupcakes we were going to bring to school for his birthday. Which was awesome! And I was all set to use one of my favorite recipes for the cupcakes I thought he was going to want to make.

"Hey, buddy," I asked, "what kind of cupcakes do you want to make for your birthday?

I fully expected him to say "Chocolate!" He has this way of saying it in a deep voice, where it takes a full thirty seconds to get every consonant out, as though he were already licking the beater from the KitchenAid. Nope. The Kid looked me in the eye, beamed, and said,

"Blueberry."

Blueberry?

I'd never had a blueberry cupcake. I'd never seen a recipe for a blueberry cupcake! Blueberry muffins, sure. Jake made a huge batch with the last of our berries this summer--we had so many, we had to put some in the freezer, and we enjoyed them for a long time. Blueberry cupcakes threw me for a loop.

But Mr. Google is a wonderful helper, and soon I had my choice of recipes. I went, of course, with Martha--has she ever steered anyone wrong recipe-wise? Martha's recipe was for 12 full-sized cupcakes, and I wanted to take mini-cupcakes to The Kid's school. I finally had an excuse to buy the mini-muffin tin I've been wanting! And I figured, batter for 12 full-sized cupcakes had to equal, what, 24 mini-cupcakes? I could handle that; it's exactly what the mini-pan holds. Perfect.

Nope. Forty-eight. Forty-eight tiny cupcakes, and only ten kids in his class. My colleagues really benefitted from this one! And we had plenty left over to share with my family after dinner. I'm not confident in halving a baking recipe yet--cooking recipes, sure, but baking ratios are such science, it makes me nervous that I'll mess something up. I'm setting my mind to learn, but in the meanwhile, it's not so bad to have 48 mini-cupcakes to share.

Recipe for blueberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting after the jump.

Food Friday: Baking With the Kid

Almost exactly a year ago, my life changed when Jake bought me the America's Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook for my birthday. Before then, I kinda-sorta-liked-to-be-in-the-kitchen-I-guess-I-mean-I'll-cook-if-it's-my-night-but-don't-expect-anything-fancy. I liked to cook, I did, but it was never something I would have volunteered to do, not when I had an awesome cook right in my house with me. (I mourned the fact that "Honey, you love to cook so much and I just don't want to take that time away from you" only lasted me about three years in our relationship.)

But then, I got The Book. And all of a sudden, the world opened up to me. Wait a minute, I realized, I can make butter? Ricotta cheese? Peanut butter? Graham crackers? Jam?!?! That last one in particular kept me busy quite a bit, and since The Kid came berry-picking with us several times last summer, it only seemed natural to teach him a little bit about where his food came from.

TOTAL DISCLAIMER HERE.

I'm completely learning along with him. I did pick berries once or twice when I was a kid, but I grew up in the idyllic suburban 1980s, believing (but not really really) that my chicken came from styrofoam packages, that my carrots came pre-peeled. My mom is a good cook, but she was scarred at a young age when her cousin took her to see chickens get...um...prepared to be food. And so it was never something that I was really exposed to at all.

While I'm disclaiming, I'd like to point out that my search for vintage pictures of moms with their sons in the kitchen turned up practically nothing. Plenty of drawings of women teaching their daughters to cook, and serving their sons food, but nothing with moms teaching their sons to cook. Pouring milk while at child height was the best I could get. Gender roles! (OK, I'm done.)

END DISCLAIMER

And so, since Jake is in the kitchen a lot, I was starting to spend a lot of time there, and he was picking some of his own food, The Kid started asking toddler-type questions about what he was eating and how it was made.

And we started involving him in the cooking. By now, he makes up his own recipes in his play kitchen (the other day, he taught me how to make "Rice Cheese," which involves more flour than I would have imagined), consistently wears his chef costume which we originally got for Halloween, and is a fantastic egg-cracker, with help, of course. Two-years-ago-me would never have believed you if you told her, but one of my Very Favorite Things to Do is to cook with my boy. And we do it nearly every weekend.

My goal is to branch out from sweets, but man sweets are fun to make! I've been reading a bit about the benefits--beyond having fun and bonding--to cooking with your kid, and I especially like the article here. The Kids Cook Monday has some great resources too, and I'm excited to look into more of them.

For now, we're relying on the devils we know, and churning out cookies like fiends. And since Jake bought an insane amount of carrots this week, we made Carrot Cake Cookies, adapted from the recipe in one of our favorite books, Sesame Street's Yummy Cookies: Baking with Kids. Those Sesame Street folks know a thing or two about childhood education. They're soft, cake-like, totally delicious, and you can pretend they're healthy. (They're not totally unhealthy...) The recipe is after the jump!

Food Friday: Birthday Hamantaschen!

It's my birthday! Since I work Sunday-Thursday, I get to have a super-chill day. I woke up late--The Kid kindly let me sleep until 7:30--spent some time in the kitchen, went to the local diner for birthday pancakes, and now I'm chilling out watching An Idiot Abroad while The Kid sleeps on the couch.

(This child, who hasn't napped for four days, insisted for 45 minutes that he wasn't sleepy while I insisted he just spend some rest time in his room so I could take a shower. After 45 minutes, I let him come out to hang with me in the living room, and he promptly fell asleep on the couch. I'm letting him be.)

Tonight, we'll carry on our grand birthday tradition: I got to ask Jake to cook me anything I want for my birthday, and I'm getting flank steak, broccoli rabe, and three-cheese polenta. He and The Kid baked me a cake last night, and I can. not. wait to chow down!

This weekend is also Purim, and since baking is one of my favorite things to do with The Kid, we made hamantaschen this morning: apricot, blueberry, and Nutella. Here's my Mini Chef putting the ingredients together for the apricot filling:

Don't worry, the oven's not on.

I'm not going to duplicate the hamantaschen recipe here, because I hardly deviated at all from The Shiksa's wonderful procedure (other than the Mini Chef helping me measure, stir, dump, and knead, then leaving me to fill and fold).

BUT!

The Kid dressed up as a chef for yesterday's Purim Parade at his school (natch), and we decided that in order to make his costume more holiday-appropriate, we'd make some paper hamantaschen to put in his pocket. "Recipe" for paper hamantaschen (a cute and easy holiday craft) after the jump!