Cooking With Kids

Normally on this blog I like to post a picture of a final product and the recipe, but today I am taking a slight deviation. This is because I want to share a really fun experience that I had this past weekend, cooking with two of my cousins. My aunt Ari and her three kids are visiting from Maryland and staying with my mom. I'm not sure how it works in most families but in my family, when someone is visiting from out of town, we try and spend a lot of time together. Saturday was no exception as we spent the day at the park and then in the evening my mom hosted a small cookout. During the day she asked me if I would make some brownies for the evenings dessert. Obviously I said yes and (to my excitement) my two cousins asked if they could help! I have to tell you, cooking with kids is a blast. It was fun teaching them some new tricks and watching them figure out how to do other things on their own. Of course it was easy to see that both of them have helped their mom in the kitchen before because they did such a great job!

The end result were some killer brownies that everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Of course we were all so excited to eat them I actually forgot take a picture, oops! I did make a few slight variations to the original recipe that I posted here so I am posting the edited version below all of the pictures. Now check out my baking pro cousins!

I started by having Alli melt the butter on stove.


While Alli was doing that I had Harris measure out the flour.

Then we realized that we didn't have enough cocoa powder so we improvised! I cut up some bakers chocolate and we added it to the sugar/butter on the stove!


Then they took turns stirring the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
When we finally got the brownies in the oven we, of course, had to lick the spoon!


And as with any great project, we needed someone to supervise!



Best Fudge Brownies
(Adapted from King Arthur)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa
2 squares (2 ounces total)semi-sweet bakers chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan

In a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Continue to heat briefly, just until it's hot (about 110°F to 120°F), but not bubbling; it'll become shiny looking as you stir it. Heating this mixture a second time will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies.

Add the bakers chocolate and stir until melted. Take off of the heat and set aside to slightly cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour cocoa powder, salt and baking powder.

Transfer the sugar mixture to a medium-sized mixing bowl. Stir in the vanilla and then whisk in the eggs, stirring until smooth.

Slowly add the dry ingredients and stir just until smooth and combined.

Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan.

Bake the brownies for about 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and the center should look very moist, but not uncooked. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack before cutting and serving.