Saturday, May 17, 2008

That's the way the cookie crumbles

Rosemary and I baked together for the first time this week. She's made crumble with her Granny before, we'd never done any baking. I'd wanted to do it a week or so ago, but didn't ever seem to have enough time with her to fit it in. Then, on Tuesday, she'd gone to sleep quite early after swimming and only slept for about an hour and we'd been out to the library and bought new shoes and the kitchen was clean and we still, somehow, had an hour free before dinner needed to be started. She came and asked me for a biscuit and I told her that we didn't have any and was just about to offer (healthier!) alternatives, when I realised we had the time. So, I asked if she wanted us to make some together. 'Oh, yes please, mummy!'

So, she got up on a chair (after washing our hands, of course!) at the dining table and out came a big bowl, some flour, some butter, some sugar and some milk and a tablespoon. This was not recipe baking, but throw a bunch of ingredients in a bowl and hope they turn into something nice (which is actually how a lot of my cooking works). The flour came first and Rosemary put a few spoonfuls into the bowl, as well as a few on the table. I added a couple more spoonfuls and then moved on to the sugar, most of which I had to add to the bowl myself, as Rosemary was much more interested in eating the sugar. I then cut the butter up into small pieces and added it to the flour and sugar. We then both put our hands in the bowl and spent a while rubbing it together to make crumbs. Rosemary particularly enjoyed 'squeezing' the butter. Once that was done, at Chris' suggestion, we added some raisins and then I added some milk and mixed it up into a dough.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find Rosemary's rolling pin, so she had to use one of mine, but she did do a bit of rolling. Once it was rolled out she had a go at cutting a couple of shapes - she particularly liked the little person and the star - but then she became much, much more interested in tearing off bits of dough and eating them, so I had to finish cutting them and stick them in the oven.

They came out remarkably well, but it wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't, as it was just good fun doing it. So... what should be next? Suggestions on a postcard to...

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