100 days of baking with kids

We’ve been busy! December has come and gone and with it came a LOT of baking adventures. Many with my little assistants, some solo. While I find baking solo to be fairly relaxing, for me it’s not nearly as much fun as making a mess in the kitchen with the kids. Lucky for me, one of them usually wants to be involved.

While December was all about cookies and treats January has been about perfecting some grab and go snack recipes. We have a great no bake granola bar recipe that I almost always have on hand, but the perfect baked granola bar recipe has eluded us…until now!

We’d been trying out different recipes and tweaking them here and there but they had been consistently disappointing. We finally scrapped that idea, took our tried and true granola recipe, changed it slightly, and baked them. WE DID IT! They’re crunchy on the edges, slightly chewy in the middle (although cooking them longer would make them a bit less so if you would prefer), and just the right sweetness! They’re so good I have to make a second batch almost immediately because the first was being eaten too quickly.

Without further ado, the recipe!

Preheat the oven to 325*

In a large bowl mix:

4 cups rolled oats

1 cup slivered almonds

1 cup pecan pieces

1/2 cup almond flour

4 tablespoons dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Dash of salt

In a small saucepan brown 1/2 cup of butter then remove from heat and stir in 3/4 cup maple syrup (the real stuff!) and 3 teaspoons of vanilla.

Poor butter mixture over oats mixture and mix well.

Dump into a parchment lined 9×13 baking dish and press down evenly. Bake for 45 min or until golden brown and the center has reached the desired consistency. (We didn’t want ours super crunchy)

Let cool completely and cut!

Please let us know how these turn out if you make them. We’ve been eating them non stop! Happy baking friends!

I’ve discovered something over these last few months. Baking is fun. Baking with my kids is LOADS of fun! Writing is fun. Forcing myself to write about EVERY bake…not so fun. Turns out the best way to follow along with the little journey is on Instagram @100daysofbakingwithkids or on Facebook, also titled 100 days of baking with kids. I will still write about our adventures here, and definitely share any recipes that the world needs, but the majority of our content will be on those two platforms. So, go check them out and let us know what you think.

We have indeed been baking. It’s apple season here in Vermont and the apples so far are AMAZING! Apple muffins? Check! Apple bread? Check! Apple crisp? Check! The best apple cake EVER? CHECK CHECK CHECK!

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/old-fashioned-apple-cake-with-brown-sugar-frosting-recipe

Seriously, this apple cake is the best thing you can make with apples. We’ve already made it twice this year and we fully intend to make it at least once more. Let’s be honest, we’ll probably make it more then that. Give it a try and let us know what you think. We’re always up for chatting baking!

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Ok, so let’s review. We are still here. We are still baking. I will still write for those of you who want to stay here. The most frequent postings will switch over to Instagram and Facebook where we would love to have you all join us! Hope to see you there!

Things are pretty crazy around here! Not in the way they used to be, in the “OH MY GOSH IT’S STARTING TO GET NICE OUT AND WE WANT TO SPEND ALL OUR TIME OUTSIDE” way. (Yes, that must be in all caps because here in Vermont we seize the good weather that we have and soak up every second of it.) We did manage to get some baking done last week, and it was a WINNER!

We found ourselves with a bit of free time one day and decided to try out a new to us recipe. We had been eyeballing these chocolate sandwich cookies in Sarah Kieffer’s 100 cookies (go buy it, it’s a winner cover to cover https://www.thevanillabeanblog.com/100-cookies) and today was our day! We did alter the filling recipe slightly by adding a bit of peppermint oil we picked up on our last King Arthur trip.

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The recipe took a little effort, a little waiting, and a little rolling, but the kids were super into it so that made it all the more enjoyable. It worked out perfectly that there was some waiting time, we snuck outside for a bit, ran around, then came back in to finish the cookies!

We didn’t have the biscuit cutter recommended for the cookies, so they ended up slightly bigger then the were supposed to, but it worked out ok. Because there were fewer cookies we used less filling and had some left over. The brilliant 8 year old suggested we make brownies to put the filling on top of, so we did! We whipped up our favorite recipe (well, H did mostly), let them cool, then put the rest of the filling on top of the brownies. They were dreamy!

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It’s not always smooth sailing with the kids in the kitchen. It’s not always smooth sailing when it’s just me! The thing to remember is that it’s not about smooth, it’s not about what comes out of the oven even. It’s about doing something together and letting them learn; from the mistakes and their successes.

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Let us know what you’re baking in your kitchens! We love recipe ideas! You can follow us on Facebook at 100 days of baking with kids and on Instagram @100daysofbakingwithkids. Happy baking friends!

What?!?! That’s right, we did it. We made a video of ourselves baking. It’s not perfect, it’s not even that good, but it was silly and fun and now you can see what really goes down in the kitchen with us! We almost always have music, we almost always have fun, and we almost always make a mess…not necessarily in that order. Enjoy friends!

We nailed it! We took our time, chose our recipe carefully, and made a better version on baking day 19! Thank goodness.

Now, I must admit that my biggest mistake on this day was giving the 5 year old the freedom to pick ANY recipe…it took a long time land on one! She FINALLY decided on brownies, it she wanted to add our new salted caramel chip mix we picked up at King Arthur Baking. She nailed it! They were SO good!

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For this recipe I really let her take the lead. I owed it to her after my behavior during our previous attempt to bake. I helped get it all organized and then she took over. She was gracious enough to let her sister help too, which is always more fun! We used out go to brownie recipe from King Arthur Baking and I think they were the best brownies we’ve ever made! They were gooey, but not mushy. Soft, but not cakey. Tiger had HUGE chocolate flavor! They were so good, we all had 2 the night we made them.

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Here are the links to the recipe, along with 2 of our favorite products that we used in this recipe to make it extra delicious!

Brownies: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/quick-and-easy-fudge-brownies-recipe

Triple Cocoa Powder: https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/triple-cocoa-blend-16-oz

Salted Caramel Chip Blend: https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/salted-caramel-chip-blend-16-oz

Go buy all the things, make these brownies, and let us know how they turn out! Stay tuned for baking day 20, it’s gonna be great! Follow along on Facebook at 100 days of baking with kids and on Instagram @100daysofbakingwithkids. Happy baking friends!

It’s April break week here and we’re enjoying the time off from “school”. What we’re not enjoying is the weather whiplash we’re getting, but I guess we ought to expect that since we live in Vermont. So far this week we have had one nice day, and that’s even a stretch. We’ve also had snow (and not a little), rain, REALLY cold wind, and now it’s trying to be nice again but it’s still pretty darn cold for the end of April. All this crazy weather sent us to our favorite room in the house, the kitchen! We decided to try a new recipe, but as we were going along we added some thing, subtracted some things, and kind of made it our own! The result, a really delicious maple cake with maple frosting. Seriously, we love maple.

The big kid was curled up with a book when we started the cake so she didn’t really participate in the cake making, but she took the lead for the frosting. The little kid was instrumental in the cake making, she mixed, measured, and whisked the eggs (but did not crack them of course! Some day I’m going to make them to this!). I think her flour measurements were a little off (I wasn’t watching but I don’t think she scraped the top, the cake batter was slightly thicker then I expected.) I counter acted this by cooking for a shorter time period and keeping a close eye on it. The end result was slightly dried then I like in a cake but not bad at all. The positive impact of her doing this by herself far outweighs the slightly dry, but still super yummy cake.

For the frosting we decided we needed to double the recipe. We baked this cake on a sheet pan and wanted a 4 layer cake vs the 2 in the recipe. The big kid wrote down all the new measurements so it would be easy for us to follow. I did double check it so that we didn’t end up with frosting soup, but she nailed it! She did the measuring, controlled the mixer, and we didn’t even have any huge explosions! We’re all learning!

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Once the cake was cool and the frosting was ready it was time to assemble. I cut the giant cake into quarters and the kids too over. They filled it and frosted it, and when we ran out of frosting they came up with the idea to make it look better with sprinkles! Problem solved! Now, you wouldn’t see this cake in a bakery window, but I think it turned out beautiful. The goal for us is not to produce something beautiful, but do learn by doing and to have fun. We checked those boxes for sure.

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Maple cake with maple frosting:

This recipe was adapted from Maple Sampler by Jan Siegrist

For the cake: preheat the oven to 350

1/2 cup salted butter (room temp)

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ginger

1 cup hot water

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream together butter and sugar, then add maple syrup and eggs. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients, then add to the syrup mixture. Stir in the hot was and the vanilla and beat until we’ll combined. Poor onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 min at 350. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting:

8 cups confectioners sugar

1 cup butter (softened)

3 tablespoons heavy cream

3 tablespoons milk

1/2 cup maple syrup (the darker the better)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer, then add the sugar on cup at a time. Add the milk, cream, maple syrup, and vanilla and mix (scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally) until it reaches the desired consistency.

Praline crunch: preheat the oven to 350

1 cup walnut pieces

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

Mix together the syrup and brown sugar then add in walnuts. Pour onto a sheet pan covered in parchment and bake for 15 min until sugar is bubbly and crunchy. (This can take longer depending on the consistency of the maple syrup you use. Keep a close eye on it as there is a fine line between just right and burnt) Let cool and the break into small pieces.

To assemble:

Cut the large cake into 4 equal pieces. Lay one piece onto a cake stand or large flat plate. Spread a layer of frosting, then top with a 1/3 of the praline crunch. Place another piece of cake on top of that, and do the same. Repeat into you place the last layer of cake and finish by frosting the outside with the rest of the frosting. Place in the fridge to set for at least an hour before cutting.

Let us know if you try this recipe and how it turns out! Come follow us on Facebook at 100 days of baking with kids or on Instagram @100daysofbakingwithkids. Happy baking friends!