It’s been awhile since Zoey & I cooked together, but we have it set up for today. Sarah & I pick her up from her home & head to my place. She’s all excited & I’m looking forward to it. We get there & take care of lunch first thing. Spaghetti & a banana pineapple cupcake & Zoey’s ready to cook.
I’m better prepared this time so hopefully it will go better. A particular favorite cookie here is Aunt Martha’s Nutmeg Bells, a recipe I got from Good Housekeeping several years back. The plan is to mix up a batch of them. While it’s in the refrigerator chilling, we’ll mix up & bake White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks. This is a new recipe I’m trying. It can be found in Mrs. Field’s Best Cookie Book Ever, page 15. If you’re into cookie baking, this is a book well worth having.
Zoey hard at work cracking eggs.
We get off to a good start on mixing the cookies. Zoey must be cracking a lot of eggs at home; she does a great job of cracking them. She’s anxious to actually operate the mixer. I’m standing right there so that’s what we do. I tell her what number to move the slide to & she operates it. I suspect we have a baker in the making in Zoey.
The cookie dough is mixed in no time & ready to go in the refrigerator. Here’s where we run into the first road bump. Zoey is hard to keep focused today. While I clean the mixing bowl, she clamors to play a game on the computer. She doesn’t argue when I tell her no. I point out that she came over to bake cookies not to play computer games.
Zoey carefully carrys the egg to the mixer.
While working on the second batch of cookies, Zoey runs back & forth from the tv to the kitchen. Again, cracking the eggs is a job she handles with finessse. We have the dough ready & I pull out the cookie scoop to use. Zoey says she remembers how to do it & proceeds to use the scoop. She keeps pulling the dough out from the middle of the bowl. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s certainly messier that way so I show her again how to pull the dough from the edges of the batch in the bowl. No biggie as she’s not even 6 & has lots of time to learn all the ins & outs of cookie baking.
She has to kneel in a chair to reach the mixer.
I put the pan of cookies in the oven & set the timer. While the cookies bake, Zoey runs & settles on the couch to watch television. I scoop out a trayful of cookies to be ready when the first batch finishes cooking. As soon as that batch cools enough to eat, Jim, Zoey & I taste them. Have to be sure they’re good to eat. Zoey pronounces them yummy.
It’s time to scoop another trayful of cookies. She doesn’t seem that interested. Clifford the Red Dog has caught her attention. She’s young & it’s more important that this be a fun process then that she do everything, so I scoop & bake the cookies until all of that variety are done.
Oops! We need to practice spacing our cookies out!
I make the decision to take her home as she’s just not heavily into baking today. Everything distracts her. But it’s been a good day & she’s excited about the cookies she helped bake. She doesn’t ask about cooking the others so I know I’ve made a good decision to take her home.
After taking Zoey home, Sarah & I roll out & bake the nutmeg cookies. I picked 5 of the designs from a new pack of Halloween cookie cutters to use. We cut skulls, pumpkins, devil heads, ghosts & tombstones. Doesn’t take very long to cut & bake them especially beings we’re working together. Tomorrow, I’ll ice & decorate them.
At 6, scooping cookies can be a 2 handed job.
White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks cooking on wire racks.
Tags: Aunt Martha Nutmeg Bells, bake, baker, baking, chocolate chunks, cookies, cooking, cooking with little ones, Mrs. Field's Best Cookie Book Ever, White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks, zoey