Big Cook, Little Cook

Well today was the day of the Great Baking Extravaganza. My darling grandson had been given an apron declaring that he's "Nana's Little Helper" so we thought we'd christen it. We took the recipes from "Easy Peasy Baking" by Mary Contini. This is a lovely book written in an enchanting style. The recipes are very well presented and easy enough for my 11yo, The Princess, to take the lead while I act as sous chef.

Whilst I measured, weighed and washed up The Princess creamed the butter and sugar for the Coconut Kisses with the electric mixer. DGS loved this and kept saying it was a Bellydoctor (helicopter). Then disaster struck - one of the beaters came loose and wedged itself in to the other burning the motor out of the mixer.

Luckily The Princess had pretty much finished creaming so we could carry on. She showed DGS how to form the mixture into small balls and gently press in the middle. As you can see from the picture DGS does not do gentle. Anyway no harm done and the results taste as good as they look.

Next they went on to make some Queen of Tarts. These are basically strawberry jam tarts with strawberries and cream. The sweet pastry again started with creamed butter and sugar. With the mixer broken I did try to do this in the liquidiser and then the Bread Machine but neither of these worked so I had to do it the old fashioned way. Once this was done The Princess took over. This recipe required the pastry to be chilled and then the tarts to be cooled before filling so was not for the impatient - they filled some of the time making biscuits with the pastry scraps. Once the cases were ready the fun of assembling the finishing touches could start. As you can see DGS is nothing if not generous with cream and strawberries.
We had a brilliant day together. DGS is, like most little boys, not famous for paying attention but he really stayed focused. it was lovely seeing the obvious pride in his face when he showed his Mummy what he'd been doing. I was very proud of the Princess too as she followed the recipes with confidence and made sure that her little nephew had plenty to do.