Baking With The Big One

I try to spend one on one quality time with the Big One whenever I can. It is sometimes difficult with the Little One needing so much attention- especially since I'm still nursing and the Little One is not a great day sleeper. I try to get them them both  down for a nap at the same time once during the day, so that sometimes limits our one on one time. This morning when the Little One fell asleep, I jumped at the opportunity to do something special with the Big One.

We were originally going to make Halloween cupcakes, but when I realized that I was out of cupcake liners I found a recipe for Chocolate Skeleton Cookies. I had all the ingredients (other than salted butter) so we quickly got to work. When the Little One is asleep time is of the essence!

We had a couple of mishaps along the way...

The recipe calls for softened butter, so I took it out of the fridge and put it into the microwave. I pressed the soften button twice because I was softening two sticks of butter. When I pulled it out of the microwave it was foamy on the top and completely melted! It was then I realized that the numbers are the amount of pounds of butter you are softening! DOH! I set it in the freezer for a few minutes, but didn't have time to wait so I just tossed it in, hopeful it would turn out okay.

Then, I woke up the Little One while using the mixer. I thought for sure we weren't going to be able to finish, but I put her in the high chair with some puffs and she was content long enough for us to finish mixing the dough. The Big One did such a great job pouring in all the ingredients and stirring the dry mixture! She's not a fan of loud noises and left the kitchen every time I had to use the mixer.

She was amazed that the brown sugar kept it's shape but the granulated didn't.

She liked pouring in the cocoa.

Stirring and stirring and stirring- it was hard to get her to stop!

The party crasher with her puff stuck to her face.

While they took their afternoon nap, the dough chilled in the fridge. After nap it was time to roll the dough and cut out the cookies! The Big One loved this part! It took her a while to figure out how to use the rolling pin, but she finally go the hang of it. I think her favorite part was making the dough into balls and pressing the cookie cutter into the dough. I have to admit, I was surprised at how well she did!

Pressing in the cookie cutter

Rolling out the dough

After the cookies cooled it was time to make the frosting and decorate the cookies. The Big One requested colored frosting, so I made a tablespoon of blue and a tablespoon of redish-pink. When the colors were mixed she said they looked like cotton candy. "I like cotton candy". She loaded her cookies with frosting and then took a taste. She really didn't like the taste of the frosting, so she ended up scraping most of it off into one of her tea set cups. While I finished decorating the cookies, she sat with me at the table pretending to drink her "cotton candy tea".

Scraping off the frosting.

The Big One's decorated cookies. You can see that she is putting the frosting in her tea cup.

The finished product.

The cookies are really yummy and we had a great time baking together. Even though the Little One crashed our baking party, I'm glad we had a little time just the two of us. I love times like those!

If you would like to make your own Chocolate Skeleton Cookies you can find the recipe here, on Mama's Crafty Kids!