Feeding The Beast

The Boy has quite an appetite. He's a big lad – 3'2” and 35 pounds of solid, irrepressible, toddler energy – and he's already prone to eating like a teenager. His palate is fairly adventurous for a toddler and he's up for at least one bite of anything - except peas. He hates peas.

He has cereal and berries for breakfast, toast and grapes or apple or banana for a morning snack, a sandwich or pasta with fruit for lunch, toast or crackers for a snack, then dinner. He usually slows down by dinner, but then has a bit of ice cream for dessert. And this is how it is when he's going through a not particularly hungry phase.

Now that we have a kitchen that has room for me to sit while I cook and prep, and now that I'm not pregnant anymore, I've been making up for lost time with the food preparation – and the organizing; you'd be surprised by how little kitchen organization Hubs needs to maintain his sanity. Nothing may be Pinterest-worthy, either the food or the pantry set-up, but it's getting there. And, as I try to reconcile my ravenous appetite with not feeding The Boy too much processed junk, I've been reacquainting myself with the fine art of baking for the heck of it – not to be confused with baking for holidays.

Our two current favorite treats are chocolate chip cookies and financiers, a fancy French word for little cakes. The financiers were actually supposed to be madeleines, but I didn't have a fancy madeleine pan, just a fancy financier pan.

The recipes were poached from The Food Network and Th Cooking Channel websites, respectively, and were chosen because they had glowing reviews and were classified as 'easy' recipes.

The chocolate chip recipe, by Elizabeth Falkner, was really, really easy to make and super tasty. Originally called Chocolate Chip Cookies Straight Up or With Nuts, I made it sans nuts. Here is the recipe:

8 tablespoons (4 ounces) butter, softened but still cool

3/4 cup (6 1/4 ounces) firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (4 ounces) granulated sugar

1 large egg (1 1/2 ounces by weight)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons (7 ounces) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped the size of chocolate chips, or bittersweet chocolate chips (about 1 1/2 cups)

 

I ignored the 'instructions' part of the recipe, and indeed the advice of any experienced baker or chef, by creaming the butter and sugars with my KitchenAid, using the paddle ,then dumping in the rest of the ingredients.

 

The instructions indicate baking at 350 for between 13 and 17 minutes, with less time for chewier cookies. I actually would have stuck tight to the 13 minute mark since I like chewy cookies and, having baked them for 15 minutes, they were pretty crunchy. At least The Boy liked the crunch.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chocolate-chip-cookies-straight-up-or-with-nuts-recipe/index.html

 

The Lemon Madelienes, or financiers, we made were actually a little bit more difficult to make(how can anything requiring tempering of eggs be considered easy?), but was still doable and very tasty - and less sweet than the cookies.

 

The recipe, by Laura Calder, goes as follows:

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 4 eggs

Melt the butter, sugars, lemon and honey in a saucepan over low heat then, this is the tricky part, temper the eggs before adding them to the pan and turning off heat.

 

Stream the butter mixture into the rest of the ingredients and whisk until smooth.

 

Pour into madeleine, or financier ;), pans and bake for 10 -12 minutes.

http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/laura-calder/lemon-madeleines-recipe/index.html

My madeleines didn't quite look like the original

But The Boy hasn't minded one bit,

Now I'm not claiming either of these recipes is healthy or nutritious, but they're both better than eating proessed store bought crap that has a bunch of preservatives in it. So while I don't plan on making these cookies or cakes as regular snacks, The Boy approves of them and they both make for nice treats.