Cookie Baking

Everyone else is doing it…  So I felt the need to do some cookie baking with my littles.  This is especially hard for me.  One, because when we are home we tend to let the TV do the kid rearing (this is why I take my kids out a lot).  Two, because I am a neat freak and having kids with kid fingers in food, with flour and sugar and more all over the place usually does not spell happy fun time for me.

But, we had a great time.  I found, I think, the perfect cookie making recipe with a 2 and 4 year old. So, I will pat myself on the back and share it with you guys now too.  It involves lots of work from them, ingredients easily found around the house, creativity can play a part, a contained mess, and they are super quick to make. The recipe is from my "Cookie Cookbook"- even more ironic, it is an 18th century recipe and I read elsewhere on the internet that Martha Washington used a variation on this recipe.  This is ironic for those of you who know my day job and me just having spent 10 hours making Martha Washington's the Great Cake for it.  Anyway, I digress.

You will need for these Jumbles: 2 slightly softened sticks of butter; 1-1/4 cups of Flour; 2/3 cup of sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cloves (I didn't have this and I used 1/2 teaspoon of allspice and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon); 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1 whole egg plus one egg yolk; other sugar for the rolling; Things (at your preference) to decorate baked product.

Mix butter and sugar together; separately mix flour, salt and seasoning together.  Then, combine two mixtures, along with the eggs and beat until well incorporated.  Form your cookies (see below for fun part). Bake on generously greased cookie sheets at 350 for 12 minutes or until bottoms just start to lightly brown. Keeps for 2 weeks, or in the freezer for 4 months.

So, I had help with the mixing and the measuring yes, but it was the making of the cookies that was the most fun for the boys.  First, you take a chestnut size piece of dough, roll it into a ball.  Then you roll out the dough into a long rope - about 4 inches long.  Roll them on your counter, using lots of sugar to both prevent sticking but also add more deliciousness to the cookies as you go.

Then, you put the rope into a circle, place it on your cookie sheet.  Then, you stomp it so it flattens into a circular cookie (see above) - or a wreath as which worked for this project (I can imagine hearts for valentines day and eggs for easter).  James loves the flattening part.  Joel Andrew loved the rolling part and then came up with the fantastic idea of adding chocolate chips to the cookies before we bake them.  They looked like little ornaments on the wreaths.  Joel Andrew placed each chocolate chip perfectly on one cookie, about 10 little chocolate chip ornaments total making it look gorgeous.  Then, on the second cookie used about five chips; by the fourth cookie we were down to one chip and then he immediately asked: "I'm done decorating, can I eat the rest of the chocolate?"  Yes, yes, you can Joel.

We plan on decorating more tonight with frosting and sprinkles.  It was fun, and it came out delicious too.  I am thinking next year we might do a class at my Museum's Tavern!