Kiddles in the kitchen

Some of my fondest of memories are those where I was with my mother in the kitchen. As a child, a teen, an adult, really anytime where we could stand side by side and make something wonderful for the family. Sometimes it would be making cookies for Christmas, or dying Easter eggs, or even as recent as pulling an all nighter on pies for Thanksgiving. Cooking with my family is something I treasure. My sisters and I are pretty unstoppable when it comes to pulling together an awesome meal for family dinner, something my father has been known to boast about while patting a full tummy. But there is something fun and wonderful when you get kids involved! Its messy, its silly and fun and at the end you get to eat! Is there anything more special?

Now I don't have any children of my own right now, so I have to borrow them from my oldest sister, Tara, who is only too happy to oblige. Such a thing occurred Friday, which was a pre-planned doughnut making extravaganza for a little get together at my friend's farm. I received a call the night before from my niece, Faith who is eleven, asking if it would be all right if she spent Friday with me as her brother and father were going to a movie she wasn't the least bit interested in seeing. I always enjoy spending a day with my Kid, as I call her, and so of course agreed. After all, many hands make light work and I had a lot of doughnuts to make!

Faithie is one amazing assistant. She keeps track of the recipe and is a master at cracking some eggs. We even had a few lessons here and there about beating eggs and the proper way to melt butter with the microwave. We also both realized we're hopeless at fractions given that I haven't had to do much of that in more years than I care to admit, thank you very much! We had decided to make chai latte doughnuts from my book Doughnuts, some mini cake doughnuts, and this wonderful recipe for pumpkin doughnuts that I found online. However, we didn't realize that one can of pumpkin will make two dozen doughnuts! So there were a lot of the pumpkin!

We made a batch of the pumpkin first, which was rather easy really, and I will link the recipe at the end of this blog entry. Its warm, spiced and so pumpkiny! Not to mention its topped with chocolate! Very tasty and slightly decadent. There is no milk, just an egg and pumpkin providing the moisture in this very soft and yummy doughnut.

Once the batter was whipped up, I came to a realization. It is a PAIN spooning doughnut dough into the pans! Solution: a large freezer ziptop bag! With Faithie holding onto the bag, I glooped (Yes glooped, its a very very technical term when dealing with doughnut dough) the dough into the bag. We had a little squish and slide hand dance to get it all down to the very bottom and into one corner. Seal the bag, cut the tip of the corner off and instant piping bag! It made it so much easier to just squirt the stuff right into the pan and they came out so even and round too. Using this same idea, with the chocolate mini doughnuts, we used a frosting gun to get them into their tiny pans.

Faithie did an awesome job filling them. Me baking them....not so much. Some came out all muffiny instead of doughnutty, so made those into a work along snack. The next batch...looked perfect! And were perfectly HARD! I mean like bounce those suckers off the floor and they don't crack! Oh well! You can't make everything right when you're playing in the kitchen! Once we had some rocks...I mean little doughnuts done, it was time to get the chai going, which involves brewing tea in hot milk for the glaze and the milk in the dough itself, giving it that tasty flavor!

Then those doughnuts were piped into their pans and everyone was set out on wracks to cool. I love my stacking cooling wracks. They are great space savers and make cooling a large amount of things so much easier. We spread some plastic wrap on the kitchen table for easy clean up and it was time for the glazing. Faithie loved this part because she got to learn about melting chocolate without scorching it and get what she called "A Chocolate Manicure". She did refrain from licking her fingers until she was done dunking the doughnuts in the chocolate.

Upon a seconding recommendation from my lovely assistant, we did sacrifice the less pretty doughnuts to "Quality Control". They were soooo goood! And we had so much fun! We enjoyed chattering about school, her dad being home on vacation, her Uncle and wishing he was home, celebrities and singing along with Pandora. There was also a bit of cooking groovin going on but there is no proof of that so it may not have happened! At least I hope there is no evidence! It was such a wonderful morning and afternoon, and something I was so glad I got to share with Faith. Sure we could have sat around and watched a movie and still had a good time, but the talks we had over that mixer and stove I will cherish. Something magical happens in the kitchen when you get those you love nearby, especially children. You may not always make something amazing (Chocolate dough-rocks) and sometimes you might, but you always make something that is worth more than gold. Memories.

Brightest Blessings!

Here is the pumpkin doughnut recipe: http://www.jasonandshawnda.com/foodiebride/archives/8325