An Interesting Discovery

 As we were waiting for the cheesy crackers to bake the other day, Emma and L (the little man we babysit) wanted to play with dough.

All I had in the house was the expensive whole wheat stuff, and a large ziplock bag of odd random flours from when we tried cutting gluten for medically experimental reasons.

So, out came a big bowl and a two smaller ones. I dumped in the odd flours (I believe it was rice flour and tapioca flour? not sure exactly). I also set out a mason jar of water for each of them.

They each scooped a bunch (it is a technical measurement term in our house) of the four mix into their own bowls. 

Water was added

And mixing commenced.

"Mama, this kinda feels like oobleck!" (I thought I had blogged about oobleck before but I can't find it, so here is a cool post about it instead)

 "Really?" -pokes finger in goo- "Hey, it does! That is really cool that we made oobleck without corn starch."

Food coloring was added. Pink for Emma and blue for L.

L was really enjoying the gooeyness and Emma was really enjoying sharing it with him.

"L, try to punch it!" giggles as he hits it and he finds that the surface is hard. "Now slowly poke your finger in it." More giggles. Best way to wait for something to finish baking :)

Drippy fun

I asked, "L, do you know what happens if you mix pink and blue?" He wasn't sure so we added a bit of Emma's and a bit of L's to a mason jar and stirred. As best oobleck can be stirred. It turned out to be a light purple :)

"I want purple!" More food coloring added.

"Me too!" 

Everybody had a good time, and the cheesy crackers came out great!

Hate the cold, Love to Bake

I really hate the cold weather. But at the same time, I love being able to use my oven without turning the house into a sauna.

In the last few weeks, Emma and I have been baking up a storm. We have made bread twice,

The first batch. I think I ate the entire thing my self. Emma and Jared may have had a piece each, but I couldn't say for sure. 

A few days later I wanted to make more bread, and Emma wanted to help out more. 

Here is the bread once we finished kneading it. 

After we let it rise for an hour.

Not sure what was up with the face, but this was after we punched the dough down and threw it into the bread pan.

Another hour of rising. 

And the finished bread! She was mid sniff in this picture. She really liked how the bread smelled. 

Doesn't it look so pretty? I ended up freezing this for now. I think I may turn the entire loaf into french toast. Then I will refreeze so that we can pop some french toast into the toaster when the desire arises :)

Bread is not all that we have been cooking. Today we made homemade gold fish (though not shaped like fish). 

I found the recipe here, which lead me here, which lead me here. I ended up just following the recipe the created all the links, which is from Savory Seasonings. She has some other recipes that I am interested in trying out. 

Anyway, Emma and I made up the dough for the cheesy crackers (as we have dubbed them). 

While the cheesy cracker dough was cooling, the banana muffins we had made earlier where cool enough to taste, so we did. 

Which jarred one of Emma's loose teeth, which made it hurt and bleed, which made her scream and cry for about 20 minutes. She hates blood, and really gets upset when her teeth get loose because she knows that it eventually leads to blood and pain. 

These latest two loose teeth (the two on each side of the middle upper teeth) we decided to just let them fall out on their own, but if every bump of the tooth causes blood and hysterics, we might try to convince her to let us pull it. 

Oh well. The banana muffins were yummy anyway. Here is the yummy simple recipe for the banana muffins. It is just as yummy if you add an extra banana. And cinnamon. 

The second batch I made up, I used some mashed sweet potato and 2 bananas, and baked it as bread instead of muffins. I should have still used 3 bananas, but the bread was very, very good.  

Well, time to be done. I told Emma she could use my laptop (her computer needs a geek squad fix). And I have a ton of school work. 

Have a great day!