Thanksgiving baking with Carla

I have been meeting with Carla, my favorite six-year-old baker, regularly now on Monday afternoon. I haven’t had time to post about our last week baking so I’m catching up now. I have tried to focus the last couple of experiment on the  fall/autumn theme. I think there are many recipes that are a lot of fun for kids to make. Fall flavors are fun, versatile, and often do not require much sugar addition because of the fruit component. This was the case of last week recipe.

Last Monday we made a wonderful apple pie. I love this recipe for two reasons. First of all, the pie makes its own crust. Yes, really! You don’t have to buy a pre-made crust, nor spend hours in making the pie before being able to eat it. In that way the kid will feel a full ownership on the pie! Second, the recipe is very versatile. You can really use any other seasonal fruit in it, so if you have a lot of fruit that for some reason is going bad you can just use it up in this pie.

The pie turned out so good that Carla and her mom made it again over the weekend for a dinner party they were hosting (in fact substituting pears for apples) and saved me a piece so that I could try it out the following Monday. Isn’t that the cutest thing ever?! If there is one thing I really hope Carla gets out of our weekly meeting is the passion for homemade desserts, the sense of accomplishment, and the desire to share these experiences and the baked goods with other people. The fact that she made that pie again with her mom and for guests was for me a sign I am actually reaching my main goal. I felt so proud of myself and of Carla. And, yes, the piece of pie they saved me was amazingly good!

You can find the recipe at allrecipes.

Last Monday, instead, I wanted to make something a bit more Thanksgiving related and I opted for pumpkin whoopee pies with cream cheese fillings. I have tried to make whoopie pies only once before and I was not really successful at it, so I was a bit insecure in making them. I decided to use a recipe I have seen at Teenie Cakes. I know I can trust whatever I find on Cristina’s blog so I went for it without hesitation.

They were a great success, at least for Carla. 

We have also decided to establish a rating system. We will give three scores to each of our recipes: Carla’s score, my score, and Carla’s mom score. Well, needless to say, the apple pie got an A+ from all of us! The whoopie pies score was:

Carla: A

Sara: B

Carla’s mom: B

The B was mainly due to the fact that neither Carla’s mom nor I are big fans of pumpkin in desserts (and, honestly, after the apple pie we both agree it will be hard to give another A+) but all in all the whoopie pies tasted amazing.

If you have kids or have kids around the house during this long weekend of holiday, spend some time with them and let them keep you (an active – not passive) company in the kitchen. They will love these two recipes.

Have a sweet Thanksgiving!