When we were on our giant road trip this summer I bought a couple of candy melt molds at the Wilbur Chocolate factory store. One was of turtles and the other was an astronaut with his spaceship. I finally took the time to get out the various candy melts we had on hand (when I see them on clearance I buy as many as I can) – red, green and white. I also thought the girls would like to have some sprinkles mixed in so I put those out too.

I also used this as a lesson on how to use piping bags for decorating. Nadia wanted me to help and explain it to her and Amelie refused help (which is typical of their personalities). After the first cavity was filled Nadia was confident and ready to keep going, but Amelie said, “I tink I need help mama!” HA!

They turned out really cute and the girls enjoyed eating them after dinner. We will be doing these later in the fall with Halloween and Christmas themed molds that I got on clearance last year.

Day 1 – Cinnamon Roll Apple Pies, Carrot Cake Cookies, Caramel Chocolate Chip Snails, Braided Berry Handpies.

Day 2 – Magic Marshmallow Puffs, Ciabatta Bread, Pound Cake, Whole Wheat Pretzel Monkey Bread, Focaccia Bread

Day 3 – Chocolate Eclairs, the pastry cream for the eclairs, and Pate a Choux for the eclairs, White Chocolate & Raspberry Whoopie Pies, Lemon Meringue Treats

WHEW! And we have all the recieps in her Young Chefs binder. Her favorite for the week was the Ciabatta Bread.

This was a great recipe because Nadia did every step with just a little assist from me (mostly reminders). I also did the final kneading of the bread and cut the cross in the middle.

This bread was very good – we tried it with strawberry preserves and with butter. Next time we try this I will use our regular gas oven because it came out too crusty on the outside and doughy on the inside with the convection oven.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Pour lemon juice into milk and stir.
3. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl.
4. Make a well in the flour mixture and stir in the milk/lemon juice.
5. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for about a minute, then form it into a soft ball.
6. Slightly flatten the ball and lay it on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
7. Cut an X in the top of the dough.
8. Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

I used lite Cool Whip and some sugar free Jello to cut 1620 calories from this dessert.

About to flip it over and hope for the best.

I had a bit of trouble with the blue jello getting to hard too fast, but next time I know exactly how I can tweak it for an even layer next time. It was delicious!!

Amelie had a lot more fun this time since her friend Jude was there to play. I didn’t have all the “My turn cook?” questions because she was distracted.

There were several more kids this time and the chefs did well with all the chaos.

Nadia was the first one to “hide the lime” while waiting on the Angel Food Croutons to bake.

Tasting the food. Neither Nadia or Elliott liked the lime fruit salad, but they did like the angel food cake croutons.

Jude, Elliott, Nadia, Amelie  (they were moving targets so this was the best one)

On the way out Elliott said, “Look it’s Nadia cooking!” I cracked up and had to get a photo – Nadia thought is was great! (oh how I wished I had put in her usual 2 ponies!)

And when we got home the girls found these from Aunt Sharon. SO COOL!

We had a gift certificate for Young Chefs from a fundraiser earlier in the year and in November we had a chance for Nadia to redeem it. It would be an understatement to say that she loved it. They made pumpkin whoopie pies (with filling) and Mulled Cider. She practically begged me to sign up for the weekly program they sell for a class each week. I told her that she already did other stuff, but she could help me with the cooking more and more. Needless to say she has been inspired and helped me make a ton of our Christmas goodies. For Christmas she made her Grandpa Brian a set of 3 BBQ rubs. She went with me to buy the spices, measured everything out and then put them in the jars.

This is Amelie on the other side of the glass wondering when it will be her turn. One of the chefs came out and brought her a small chair and kitchen toys to play with which I thought was sweet.

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Her Papa and Grandma Brooke sent her a set of kitchen tools that are child sized and 3 very cool kids cookbooks for Christmas. She has already baked “Yummy Hunny Cookies” and looks forward to doing more in the New Year. I am really happy that the gift certificate has made her even more interested in cooking.

We got the Autumn Treasures unit study of Amanda Bennett’s site, unitstudy.com, and it took us much longer than usual due to our busy month, but it was great. I started by getting about 15 books from the library and printing some extra activities from Homeschool Creations. We learned a lot in this study just like our past ones on seashells and robots. We started with Do a Dot pages to get warmed up and start our discussion about fall (even though it was still pushing 100 in these parts)

Just like the other units there were a lot of fun videos to watch including how candy corn is made and how an apple press works. We learned about Johnny Appleseed and his travels – Nadia enjoyed all his crazy hats, especially the cooking pot. I have already done blog posts on the monarch butterflies and apple pie bites that we made, but here is a little view of the rest of our unit.

Nadia is working on her fall tree in this photo.

A puzzle for the back of her lapbook.

Learning the life cycle of a pumpkin – here she is with the pumpkin she picked out at homeschool day at Mainstay Farms.

Families are encouraged to go on a nature walk each day and collect items. Then enter the highlights into your unit study work book. Here are some of the things Nadia found along the way.

Leaf rubbings from our nature walks.

“Fairy” Amelie and Nadia on a nature walk.

Amelie was saying, “art art art art” over and over while I was working with Nadia so I went to see what she wanted. Then I realized that she was drawing “hearts.” Pretty cute!

We got the idea for one of our other cooking projects from the Mama Jenn site.  These were messy and fun to make and tasted yummy!

Last of all, here is her completed lapbook.

Ingredients.

Brushing the pie pastry with butter. Then she sprinkled sugar mixed with cinnamon.

Apple wedges wrapped with pastry, brushed with more butter and sprinkled with more sugar mix.

The first batch out of the oven.

These were SO GREAT! Not too sweet and so easy for Nadia to do. She was so proud and we shared them with friends and they loved them too.

Start with the following (made from scratch): 2 batches marshmallow fondant, 21 cups cake batter, 12 cups white icing, fondant buttons in pink and raspberry filling. After baking the cakes you start to assemble.

The bottom portion of the cake was white almond sour cream. Topped with a layer of icing and fondant. The top layer was double fudge chocolate with a raspberry filling.

Blue fondant ribbons going on.

8 hours later this was the finished product! So yummy!

Prep time. (notice that all the Zhu Zhu’s are watching)

First one done.

By the end Nadia was doing everything herself. She even had the twist of the decorator bag going on!

Close up shot of the one she did herself from start to finish.