Cooking School

Elsa at age 3

When Todd and I first moved from our big house in Denver to our  little house in the big woods of rural New Hampshire, our great niece Elsa was just two years old. She turned three that summer, and in the fall, I began picking her up from preschool on Thursday afternoons and bringing her home for stories, a snack, and play time. When Elsa turned four, her mother, my niece and neighbor Rachel, passed on a request: Elsa would like to bake something with me. Thus began Aunt Jane’s Cooking School.

Aprons await

Only once did I pick up a tearful Elsa. She cried in the car all the way up our driveway and was sobbing and hiccuping when she walked into the house. (I have no recollection of exactly why she was crying; I don’t think I ever figured that out!) But the moment she saw the ingredients for that day’s baking project laid out on the counter, she was done crying and ready to go. Insto-chango! And we don’t always cook things that are Elsa’s favorites. When we made zucchini bread and I insisted on adding chopped walnuts, she took a bite of the finished product and deftly maneuvered each tiny piece of nut with her tongue to the front of her mouth and spit it out. I was mesmerized!

Raspberry Hand Pies, Oh my!

My favorite recipe so far from Cooking School is raspberry hand pies. The crust is pastry-flaky and the filling divine. They also look so pretty! Elsa’s favorite is fruit pizza — a shortbread-like crust topped with berries and drizzled with a jam sauce. Yum. (Find the post about it in the “Recipes” section here.) Most recently we made rugelach (Elsa’s brother Parker’s favorite cookie), and I’ll use that class to show  how cooking school goes. Try it with your own little one! (We used a King Arthur Flour recipe that caught my fancy because it looked easy and involved rolling, patting, and painting: click here to go to the recipe at the KAF site.)

Washing Up

The first thing Elsa does when she bursts through the Little House door for Cooking School is grab her apron from the chair, put it on with a flourish of winding and tying (I used to do this for her, but six-year-old Elsa can do it herself), then pull a stool up to the sink. I no longer need remind her to wash her hands. She’s on it! Next she’ll move the stool to the counter where the day’s ingredients are set out and survey the scene like a sleuth. What are we making?

Ingredients ready to measure

I always prep the recipe for her so she can jump right in. I also find that preparing ahead helps me avoid leaving out an ingredient. (And setting out appropriate measuring cups and spoons helps too.) This photo shows the ingredients for the rugelah filling. I made the dough ahead of time because it needed at least an hour chilling time in the refrigerator. Elsa could have done it herself, though. It only involves combining butter, cream cheese, sour cream, and flour in the stand mixer, separating it into three disks, wrapping them in plastic wrap, and refrigerating them until they’re good and cold. The combination is so soft that trying to roll it out right away would lead to disaster. Avoid disaster whenever possible.

Adding filling ingredients to the food processor

We use a special technique for measuring dry ingredients that helps us keep track of the recipe. First we weigh out the flour. (I am a huge fan of the kitchen scale, and Elsa enjoys monitoring the digital display. If we use the “grams” mode we avoid pesky fractions, but Elsa’s ready for ounces now!) When adding other ingredients to the flour, Elsa drops each one (baking power, cinnamon, salt, etc.) in a different place on top of the flour. Before we whisk or whirl, we look to see if everything has been added. We also place each ingredient container off to the side after using it. Redundant systems? You bet!

Dividing the filling into thirds

After processing the filling ingredients (brown sugar, raisins, chopped walnuts, and a pinch of salt), Elsa used the food scale to divide the filling into thirds, then it was time to roll out the dough. Elsa now uses the rolling pin herself (without “helping hands”), which has led to the technique of lightly patting the rolled dough to determine if there are thick and thin areas that need evening out.

Once each disk was a roughly 10-inch round (we used a ruler!), Elsa used a pastry brush to paint on boiled cider. (That’s a King Arthur Four special ingredient. Maple syrup would work well or just plain water.) Then she sprinkled the filling evenly over the damp dough and patted it lightly with her hands to adhere it to the dough.

We took turns cutting each round into twelve slices. I did the initial two cuts to make quarters, then Elsa did the math to determine how many cuts were needed per quarter to make 12 slices. Ah, fractions! She cut each quarter into three slices then was off and running rolling them up. I rolled the first cookie, and Elsa took it from there. All she needed was a gentle suggestion that she slow down and roll carefully. (Ask Elsa what is the most important tool in the kitchen. I guarantee that she’ll answer without hesitation: “Your hands!”)

The next step involved painting (cream) on the tops of the cookies with a pastry brush and sprinkling them with coarse sugar. She did that job on a piece of waxed paper then transferred the cookies to a parchment lined baking sheet. That way the painting process could be free form without worrying about stray drops of cream or sugar crystals burning in the oven. The tray of cookies then went into the refrigerator (requiring creative reorganization!) while the oven heated up. Apparently the final chilling time helps the filling stay in the cookies while baking.

What to do during chilling and baking time? At Cooking School, that is the all-important snack and reading time. Elsa has progressed from picture books to chapter books, and this fall we began with the Sarah Plain and Tall books about a family on Kansas farm in the early 20th century. As in the Little House books, there are tears and laughter, the simple joys of living off the land and the accompanying hard times. We both loved the books, and Elsa always wanted to squeeze in one more chapter.

We have a traditional snack — buttered toast sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar — stemming from our days of reading the Mercy Watson picture books about a pig who was treated like a daughter by her human parents. Mercy Watson’s favorite food is buttered toast; we thought cinnamon-sugar was a logical addition. Don’t you?

Cooking School typically ends with Rachel (Mom) or Stephen (Dad) picking up Elsa and her culinary masterpieces. Often they have to wait while we finish reading a chapter, and there’s usually a taste test and a verdict: “Delicious!” says Stephen. Elsa gave the rugelah a thumbs up and took a big batch home. I’m hoping that Parker was able to sample some 🙂

Elsa loves pumpkin pie, so next Cooking School session we’re going to make a Pumpkin Angel Food Cake.  It’s served with whipped cream and caramel sauce, both of which are on Elsa’s “favorites” list. She’ll be separating a lot of eggs for the cake (Angel Food cake requires lots of whipped egg whites), and she’ll use a custard cup to collect the whites one egg at a time. She’s become quite adept at it, but it’s also quite likely that at least one yolk will break in the process, so I always have extras on hand. No biggie! Elsa is very philosophical about mishaps, which eliminates almost all unwanted drama in the kitchen. Some of her most endearing expressions are: “That’s okay!” and “It’ll still taste good!”

So, there you have my Cooking School tips: Plan ahead, make the experience as interactive as possible, expect the unexpected, keep your sense of humor, let her try hard things, and enjoy your time with a child who will all-too-soon be cooking on her own.

Beau and Gracie napping

It really is a privilege to have time alone with Elsa. She often impresses me with her spunk, her remarkable memory (no lesson is lost on her), and her moments of pure grace that can take my breath away.

During one session Elsa was busily stamping out treats with a dog bone cookie cutter for her dog Briar and our Beau when she wondered aloud, “Do you think Papa’s making these for Emma and Gracie?” She was thinking about her grandfather, my brother and Diane’s husband Peter whom we lost in 2010, and two beloved family dogs who died in the last two years — Peter and Diane’s Emma, and our Gracie. Elsa played with both dogs, but she never met Peter. That’s okay — clearly they know each other.