Today is the shortest day of the year and tonight is the longest night. It is an important time for those of us who live in northern lattitudes because it marks a very real and very important occasion, the switch from loss of light every day to the slow return of light, precious seconds every day. I don’t get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) so much as just sensitivity to light length and quality. On this day we celebrate the Sun and light candles at night in anticipation for the new year and rememberance for the past year.

If you would like to learn more about the winter solstice and traditions around it (ancient and new) try these links:

Winter Solstice wiki entry
Stonehenge wiki entry
Maps and layouts
Amazing Stonehenge photo gallery
Stonehenge clones and morphisims
Party at the henge
Modern Stonehenge Solstice Ritual
Modern Druids and the Stonehenge
Information on Druids and the Stonehenge
List of Solstice websites that may interest you

To mark the occasion, we made our own stonehenge cake! We printed out some layouts and photos.

Then we set to work!

We gathered the various materials we would need to build our stonehenge and sat down to the hard work of nibbling on ladyfingers and sneaking bites of frosting.

(Materials © 2006 Nika All rights reserved)

We trimmed off the ends of the ladyfingers and cut a few in half lengthwize (for the capstones).

(More cutting © 2006 Nika All rights reserved)

Q spread frosting on her plate as a foundation. KD did the same. Baby O worked on his nap. The frosting had to be put all over the plate. Here Q is using an off-set spatula.

(Spatula in hand © 2006 Nika All rights reserved)

She had to be sure to get a deep enough layer of “snow” so that the ladyfinger stones would stand upright. Q studied the photos and layouts of the Stonehenge and then set to work constructing hers. If you look carefully, you will see that she stuck very closely to the actual layout.

KD’s henge is coming together beautifully. It did not last long tho. Alas, cake and frosting are too tempting for a 3 year old.

(Little fingers work the stones © 2006 Nika All rights reserved)

And voila, CakeHenge 2006!

(CakeHenge 2006! © 2006 Nika All rights reserved)

Recently, Fiesta Products, the makers of the Sil-Pin Jr. rolling pin, were kind enough to send the Well Fed Network a sample pin for some kids to test out and review. This little rolling pin is a kid sized version of their larger and heavier silicon rolling pin for adults. I had my daughters Q (11) and KD (3) test the pin for usability and comfort, and I report their feelings about the pin here.

KD was immediately drawn to the pin before I even got it out of the plastic packing (you can see that above). She knew from the size that it was just for kids!

She loved using it for making play-dough sheets because the silicon did not stick to the play-dough. The pin was perfect for her little hands. This may be for kids but it is not a cheaply made mini-me by any means.

She could press down as hard as she pleased, the handles were not going to bend.

It didnt seem to get dirty at all. This is a major bonus when playing with play-dough because with a clean rolling pin you wont mix colors as much. (Ok, thats a mommy thing, perhaps its better to mix colors! Its been AGES since I was this little and I am pretty sure they didnt have play-dough in Colombia in the mid ’60s.)

Q, the older child, got to test out the pin on some real cookie dough.

Obviously, the mechanics of the pin remain the same, but she is big enough to really need to use the adult pin. She loved working with it, though, and would not mind using it. However, her projects tend to include much larger dough balls than this little pin can handle.

Of course, I played with it too. I can see using this to roll out small amounts of pastry dough super fast. One excellent thing about this pin is that you can refrigerate it so that it is a cool pin for rolling out pastry dough. With a regular rolling pin, sometime the fats in the dough can really gum it up, but the nonstick makes a big difference.

The only draw back to this pin is that you cannot pitch it in the dishwasher. It is so easy to clean, though, that it’s probably best that you just take a moment to rinse/rub with a soapy sponge and, voila, ready for the next job!

I found the Sil-pin Jr for sale at Linens ‘n’ Things for $9.99. The adult sizes (which also come in a variety of colors and types) seem to range from mid $30s to mid $40s.

Technical Specs:

• 9″ x 1.75″
• Non-Stick, Food-Safe Silicone

Where to buy:

• Amazon.com
• The Baker’s Catalogue
• Gourmet Catalog
• Kitchen Kapers
• LaPrima Shops
• Linens n Things

(Mango Apple compotes in pastry shells © 2006 Nika)

Today Q is going to show you all how she made these Mango Apple compotes in pastry shells. You may wonder what a compote is. According to the Wikipedia, a compote is:

.. a dessert made of fruit cooked in sugar syrup.

We took it a bit further and put the sauted fruit into pastry shells that had been filled with vanilla pudding.

Q’s take on this dessert - “I liked making; it was really fun. It tasted good – I liked the flavors. I liked the mango even though I don’t like mango lassis.”

Ingredients:

• 1 Mango
• 1 Apple
• 1 container Vanilla Pudding (it would be even better if you made your own homemade pudding. That’s another post, as Alton Brown would say)
• 3 Pastry shells (We used the pre-fabricated pastry shells from Pepperidge Farms. They are great and work every time. You can also make them yourself!)
• Minced ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon real Vanilla
• 4 tablespoons butter (If not salted, add a pinch of salt to the cooked fruit.)

(Mango Apple compote ingredients © 2006 Nika)

Q says - “I liked it because it has few ingredients.”

(Close up of frozen pastry shell from Pepperidge Farms © 2006 Nika)

Q says - “These pastry things were cute”

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 F.
• Line a baking sheet with some parchment paper and stick it down to the sheet with a bit or water or cooking spray.
• Bake as per package instructions. Make sure to watch them so that they do not get too brown.
• Remove and allow to cool.

Q says - “I learned that I had to put down parchment because they might stick to the pan”

(Pastry shells ready for the oven © 2006 Nika)

(Baked pastry shells © 2006 Nika)

Q says - “I liked cutting these and eating the bits from the middle.”

• Cut out the central part to make the cup to receive your filling.

(Cutting out central party of pastry shell © 2006 Nika)

• Cube mango and apple. You are going to cook these two fruits seperately.
• Melt 2 tablespoons of butter to a small pot over medium heat.
• Add mango, 1/8 teaspoon of minced ginger, and 2 tablespoons of white sugar.
• Cook until it has dehydrated a bit and the sugar is starting to thicken the fruit juices.
• Cool.
• Repeat with the apple but use vanilla and no ginger.

(Cubing the fruit © 2006 Nika)

Q says - “I liked cutting up the fruit. My mom let me use the giant knife. I wasn’t scared; it was easy.”

• Put some vanilla pudding on the bottom of each pastry shell and then add the cooked fruit.
• Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.
• Enjoy!

(Q finishing off the Mango Apple dessert © 2006 Nika)

Q says - “It was sorta hard for me to put the pudding in the cups.”

(Q chopping the fruit and posing © 2006 Nika)

Q says - “To the kids reading this - you should really cook it because it’s really fun and yummy.”

Along with the many books geared toward cooking with your kids, there are many “kid sized” cooking kits available.

Those useful for baking include:

Silicone Chef 3 Piece Starter Set

Sassafras Kid’s Cupcake Making Kit

Beginner’s Baking Set

Kids’ 30-pc. Baking Set

One geared toward cooking:

Sassafras Little Cook Tool Kit

These are great gifts that can be used for pretend or real play!

(Don Strand/AP)

When I was a kid I loved to cook. I had an Easy-Bake oven and made the most awful tasting little cakes. Even so, it was so much fun to mix up the powder in the packets, pour the batter into the little pans, push the pans into the light-bulb oven with the funky little pusher, and then watch as it baked. I think I singed not a few eyelashes.

Hasbro even has a website focused on all things Easy-Bake.

The Easy-Bake is now some 43 years old and was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame this year!

Believe it or not there is actually an official Easy-Bake cookbook.

Even better there is the The Easy-Bake Oven Gourmet that features from-scratch Easy-Bake recipes by the likes of Rick Bayless (Chilaquiles with Roasted Tomato Salsa), Tom Douglas (Palace Olive Poppers), Mollie Katzen (Carrot Kugel), and other chefs and foodies such as Mark Bittman, Bobby Flay, David Lebovitz, and others.

You might be able to find your model in this eBay search on vintage Easy Bake ovens.

That little Easy-Bake oven has changed a lot in the past 40 some years.

Now there are several models, the closest to the old style looks like this:

Hasbro Easy-Bake Real Meal Oven

There are all sorts of mixes that you and your kids can use in the Easy-Bake ovens.

Easy-Bake Super Pack 12 mixes

Blue’s Clues Blueberry Muffins

You could even enroll your favorite kid in the EASY-BAKE SWEET DELIVERY CLUB program.

According to Hasbro:

“For just one payment of $49.99*, your child will receive five shipments (each sent about every eight weeks) full of EASY-BAKE mixes and accessories- more than 60 items in all! Examples are cake and cookie mixes, Cookie Party Bake Set, cookie cutters, apron, spatula and wooden spoon”

While I could not find it with my most-uber google searching skills, I am sure that somewhere out there is a whole thriving community of Easy-Bake chefs and cooks who strive to bring excellence to Easy-Bake Cuisine.

Imagine an Easy-Bake Iron Chef, an Easy-Bake amuse buche, an Easy-Bake 12 course tasting menu with 12 different pairings with Kool-Aid.

The possibilities stagger the mind.

I am so excited to be a part of this new blog, Kid’s Cuisine, because I think it is really important that kids are welcomed into our cooking acitivites. It can be hard to find things for children to do, along side of you while you are cooking, but it pays real dividends in terms of engaging acitivities that educate at the same time. Being a homeschooling mom, I find this sort of dual purpose activity quite valuable and gratifying.

Another reason to cook with your kids is that they look darn cute while they are lost in the fun of cooking or baking with their mom and dad!

In my first post here at Kid’s Cuisine, I am going to share a day I spent with my two daughters, Q and KD, making bread. Bread is a sure bet because you have the dough factor; edible playdough! I do not let them eat it though and I am very careful to have them wash their hands throughout because there are eggs in this recipe. It is also important for the hands to start out clean because we are essentially culturing whatever germs we introduce throughout the day. For the older kids, it is important to learn about sanitation issues while cooking because it is critical to future success in the kitchen (i.e.: not killing off the dinner guests)

I usually make White Bread plus from “The Joy of Cooking,” but this day I had a hankering that was specific to a bread I had not made before – Challah.

I really love the cultural heritage embodied by Challah. What I resonate most with is the conjuring of love, home, and hearth that comes from the making of this bread. Instead of buying a cooked loaf in a store somewhere made by strangers intent on profit, the bread baking in your own oven made by your own hands infuses its beautiful aroma throughout the home, embracing everyone within with its promise of fellowship and simple joy of fresh homemade bread.

When we made this bread, my daughters and I had a glorious engrossing afternoon of making dough, kneading it, braiding it, allowing it to rise, and then enjoying its smells as it baked. What a wonderful magical afternoon! We ate challah for at least a week.

We used Joan Nathan’s recipe for Challah bread. It can be found in her cookbook “The Jewish Holiday Baker.” It is easy and quite forgiving! I used 5 eggs instead of the 4 called for by accident because this was the first time through this recipe (the 5th should be used as an egg wash). Do be watchful of the color of your bread as it bakes, mine was too dark before the recommended baking time, vagaries of the oven!

Now in Joan Nathan’s voice with our photos and occasional notes (Note that my 10 year old daughter did all of the steps with her own two hands. The 3 year old also made her own little loaf, with a bit of help from her older sister):

Challah Bread

This recipe calls for two kinds of flour. Bread flour includes more gluten, helpful in the braiding. However, if you can find only all-purpose flour, use that. It also calls for 1/2 - 3/4 cup of sugar, because I like my challah less sweet than many challah eaters, even in my family! If you are going to use just one loaf, perform another mitzvah — give away the second. If you are making a month of challahs, as I sometimes do, double the recipe and freeze several just after braiding them. Take them out of the freezer 5 hours before glazing and baking.

Ingredients:

1 scant tablespoon (1 package) active dry yeast
1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
5 large eggs
5 cups bread flour
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, approximately
1 tablespoon salt
Poppy or sesame seeds for sprinkling

Directions:

Note: Technically, the separation of challah with a blessing, according to the Talmud, refers only to dough using flour that weighs at least 3 pounds 11 ounces. If the flour weighs less than 2 pounds 11 ounces, you do not have to separate the challah at all, and if it weighs more than 2 pounds 11 ounces and less than 3 pounds 11 ounces, you can separate it without a blessing. The challah is usually blessed after the flour, yeast, water, and other ingredients are mixed.

The dough:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the sugar and the oil and mix well with a whisk or a wooden spoon. Beat in 4 of the eggs, 1 at a time; then gradually stir in the bread flour, 2 cups of the all-purpose flour, and the salt. When you have a dough that holds together, it is ready for kneading.

(Proofing the yeast)

(Focused on the tasks at hand)

(Eggs for the mix)

(Breaking the eggs, look at those cute kid fingers!)

(Measuring out the flours)

(Stirring the wet batter before it starts to come together)

2. To knead by hand, place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead well, using the heels of your hands to press the dough away and your fingers to bring it back. Continue, turning the dough, for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic, adding the remaining 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour or as needed.

(The dough is wet when it first starts out)

(The dough comes together beautifully by the end)

To knead by machine in an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook, knead for 5 minutes on medium speed, or until smooth. You can also process half the dough at a time in a food processor fitted with the steel blade; process for about 1 minute.

3. After kneading, place all the dough in a large oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. You can also put the dough in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees for a few minutes and then turned off.

(We used oiled parchment paper and a Tupperware tub to minimize loss of heat and moisture)

(We put the closed container out in the hot shade, didn’t want to bake it in the sun)

4. When the dough is almost doubled in size, remove it from the bowl and punch it down — the rougher you are, the more the dough likes it. Return it to the bowl, cover it again and let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes more. Or, if you have to go out, let the dough rise slowly in the refrigerator several hours or overnight and bring it to room temperature when ready to continue.

(Start of the first punch-down)

(End of first punch-down)

Braiding and baking the challah:

(The dough upclose, after the 30 minute rise, ready for shaping)

5. To make a 6-braided challah, take half the dough and form into 6 balls. Roll each ball with your hands into a strand about 14 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Pinch the strands together at one end and then gently spread them into 2 groups of 3.
Next, take the outside right strand over 2 to the middle empty space. Then, take the second strand from the left to the far right. Regroup to 3 on each side. Take the outside left strand over 2 to the middle and the second strand from the right over to the far left.

Continue this method until all the strands are braided. The key is to always have 3 strands on each side so that you can keep your braid balanced. Make a second loaf the same way. Place the braided loaves in greased 10- by 4-inch loaf pans or on a greased cookie sheet with at least 2 inches in between.

To make loaves symbolizing the 12 shewbread, the consecrated loaves placed on the altar in the Temple of Jerusalem, shape one half of the dough into 12 tight balls and press them together in the bottom of a greased 10- by 4- inch loaf pan. Repeat with the second half of the dough in another pan.

We chose the simpler method of just three stranded loaves:

(Dough was split into 12 equal sized balls)

(Equal sized strands are formed)

(The toddler makes her own strands too)

(Three strands are joined at the top)

(Strands are braided together, being careful to not stretch any strand too long)

(The braid is sealed off on the end)

(Braided loaves ready for the next step)

6. Let the challah loaves rise another hour, uncovered. Fifteen minutes before putting the loaves in the oven, beat the remaining egg and brush it gently over them. Five minutes later, lightly brush them again. Then sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds and let dry a few minutes.

(Loaves are put onto greased cooking sheets)

(Loaves rising uncovered in a warm oven)

(Risen loaves getting their egg washes)

7. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the loaves on the middle rack of the oven for 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes more. Turn off the oven and leave the loaves in 5 minutes longer to get a dark-golden crust. Remove and cool on a rack.

Yield: 2 loaves

(Loaves out of the oven. Like I said, watch the color of your bread! Egg bread like this with the egg wash can get dark fast. It was done PERFECTLY inside.)

(Such divine bread)

I say make this bread with your family as soon as you can get it together.

Books of Note:

• The Jewish Holiday Baker by Joan Nathan
• The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer