Baking Brownies

For Heaven's Sake!  I blink and all of a sudden it's been a month since I blogged.  Oops!  Time to catch up on what's been going on around our parts.

Avery had a Thanksgiving party at her Children's Day Out program and I was signed up to bring brownies.  Avery and I got to work in the kitchen.

Avery LOVES to help cook.  I try to let her do as much as she can by herself.

We may or may not have had to fish out egg shell.  Don't tell her classmates!

Avery is such a big helper!

Next week I'm going to let her bake a cake unsupervised.  She's old enough.

The hard part was finding the perfect cookie cutter shape.  We didn't want boring, ol' square brownies.  They had to be symbolic of Thanksgiving.  So many choices! Like 100 choices. Seriously.  100 cookie cutters!

 
I had some parameters.  I had to have a certain number of brownies so a lot of the more Thanksgiving type cutters were a little too big.  We went with the heart.  It made the cutest little brownies!

And a few scraps left to, um...share. 

Avery was so proud of herself!  I was so proud of her too.  It was a great way to start the Thanksgiving holiday!

More adventures to come!

Jen and Avery Cook

Batman and I are having some friends over this evening for dinner. They have a daughter that just turned 4 (I think). Avery loves older kids so this should be a great evening for all of us. Batman has smoked some brisket and corn, our friends are bring baked beans and potatoe salad. Avery and I really felt like we weren't contributing to this meal so we needed to step it up. This meal was missing dessert. When it come to dessert theres no better (and easier to make recipe than) The Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake.

Have you made this sheet cake? If not, stop everything right now and make the cake. You can thank me later after you die from its goodness! It is delicious and easy to make! Trust me people.

Avery being the little helper that she is helped me get everything measured and ready to go.




Have I mentioned she is independent? She can do it all by herself! She helped me measure and dump flour, sugar, baking soda, and vanilla. She even helped with eggs. I hope no one minds the egg shells in the cake. Just kidding, I got all the egg shells of the cake...I think.

Right after the recipe calls for eggs, Avery had a mini melt down and it was time for nap. And by nap I mean she laid in her crib and sang, played with her friends, talked to her friends, and may funny noises for at least an hour. I felt a little bad for leaving her in there but she seemed to be having a good time and I didn't have a 2 year old that thought she was the Queen of the Kitchen underfoot.

I finished up the cake and may or may not have tried a little piece straight from the oven.

I may or may not have died and gone straight to heaven.

The moral of this story is several-fold:

1. Don't bake with your 2 year old close to nap time. You're just asking for it.

2. Go to The Pioneer Woman's blog right now, get the cake recipe and make it. You probably have everything in your pantry to make this recipe. She has a cookbook. Buy it. You won't be disappointed.

3. When you make this cake, please invite me over.

Another parting shot. I never get tired of this girl .

More adventures to come!