Grandma' Agnes Fudge Cookies

I've admired my Grandma' Agnes as long as I can remember. She was a cool Lady, something extraordinary and I'm not saying that just because she was my Grandma. She traveled around the world until she was 80 years old, because she loved it. Of course she wasn't 80 years old if you asked her…she was 19 years old all her life. I have so many great memories having fun with her. One time I had to bribe a guy that rented out surf boards so that he wouldn't rent her any, she was 78 at the time. She didn't have any limits what so ever. Another time she slapped me in the face for not introducing her as my girl friend, when we met some new people on a cruising ship. We traveled all over Southern Europe, Hawaii, Alaska and many other states together. She was the one giving me my first camera when I was 5 years old. Agnes was, believe it or not, an incredible baker. 

Today I'm sharing her Fudge Cookies. That's one of my favorite recipe's, for many reasons. They taste absolutely wonderful, but they are so sweet that your tongue kind of curls and you only want one cookie. I like that too. I rather have one awesome cookie than ten cookies that are so and so. Grandma' Agnes Fudge Cookies are also very easy to make AND it only takes 20 mins (altogether, mixing and baking in the oven.) The perfect quick fix that you can't go wrong with. My son learned to bake them by himself at age four. So far I haven't met anyone that doesn't like them. They are easy to make, like with all cookies it's very important to not over bake them. I think that's the only thing that possibly could go wrong. They are suppose to be baked for EXACTLY 12 mins.

Grandma' Agnes Fudge Cookies

4oz Butter

1/2 Cup Sugar

2tbs Maple Syrup

Cut the cold butter into pieces

Cut the butter in pieces and mix the ingredients. I mix them by hand with a fork. 

Mix 1,5 Cup All Purpose Flour and 1/2 tbs Baking Powder separately.

Mix all the ingredients together. I usually put them all on a table and mix them with my hands. That's how Grandma' did. If you want to you can add some vanilla extract. It gives them a nice touch, but it's not necessarily. Mix the dough with your hands until it's smooth and there's no big chunks of butter left.

Divide the dough into two equal pieces.

Two equal pieces of dough, rolled into strings
 and placed on parchment paper. 

Roll them to long strings and place them on parchment paper. Use your hands and put a little pressure on the strings. 

Bake them in the lower part of your oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes.

When they are done they are still soft, but only for less than a minute. Cut them into desired pieces at once. Leave them on the baking sheet to cool down, for at least 10 minutes.

I prefer to have one cookie to my coffee, the Swedish way. What do you like to drink to your cookies? 

Pizza for everyone!

Easy to bake pizza

I hesitated about posting this recipe, since pizza is food and not bread or pastry. However I decided that since pizza has dough and you actually bake pizza I´m sharing the recipe here. This is a very simple recipe (easy to bake) that I make as snacks or a light meal from time to time. One of the benefits is that you can use any leftovers that you have and all family members can choose toppings of their likings. You decide how healthy you want to be..You can make it in less than 30 min and it´s delicious (since you choose your favorite toppings you can´t complain!) In this recipe I used baking powder.

If you want to be fancy use ¾ oz. dry yeast and warm liquid instead, let the dough rest 30 min before baking.

The dough is suitable for three big pizza´s (meal) or 5-6 snack bites.

 

1½ cup all-purpose flour

1½ cup spelt flour

½ tbsp. baking powder

½ tbsp. salt

Mix with a fork in a big bowl.

Add 1 cup olive oil and 1 ½ cup water, stir until mixed. Stir as little as possible.  Don´t work the dough longer than necessarily.

Divide the sticky dough in three pieces and place them on parchment paper. Use your hands and warm water (otherwise the dough will stick to your hands) to form the three pieces (meal) into round, flat breads.

Top with your favorite pizza topping.

Today I choose a lime tomato salsa, black olives, leftover Christmas turkey and Swiss cheese. My son choose salsa and cheese only. I like baking pizza because even the pickiest kid eats when they get to make their own pizza.

Bake the pizza´s at 400 degreese Fahrenheit for about 16-20 min (until golden).

ENJOY!!

                                             KID FRIENDLY MEALS OR SNACKS!

Baking With Kids

My son have spent some time with his father in Sweden but right now he´s on the plane on his way to California. It´s terrible to be apart from him but SO wonderful when he finally comes back. It makes our time together very valuable. I´m so grateful for every minute with him.

My son loves baking. He´s been baking with me since he was newborn, just like Hayley. Some of the things we love to bake together are: pizza, cinnamon buns, bread, chocolate cake and cookies. He enjoys baking almost everything. He truly loves making his own pizza. I think he enjoys baking pizza more than anything else, I have to ask him when he gets here.

Some things that are important to think about, to make baking with kids a success are:

·       Make sure you have plenty of time, it´s not fun if you´re under time pressure.

·       Choose to bake something that you can master without too much trouble. You want your main focus to be on your child.

·       Don´t wear your best clothes! It can be messy sometimes.

·       Place all the ingredients you are planning to use in front of you before you start baking.

·       Talk to your child and explain what you are doing. They learn so fast. Take the time to answer questions.

·       Let the child help with everything that it´s possible for a child his/her age to do. Baking is an excellent opportunity to make math fun for your child. There´s so much math in baking (measuring, temperature, dividing the dough in pieces, counting how many pieces there are etc...)

·       Let the child have his/her own tools.

·       Don´t mind the mess! You can clean afterwards. Concentrate on the fun instead.

·       Give a lot of praise for every effort your child makes.

 

Is there anything else that you find useful to consider when baking with kids? What do you enjoy baking with your kids?