Kids Cooking Class - Pumpkin Pie Bites!

For this month's Kids Cooking Class with my MOMS Club, I trotted out the recipe I had planned to do last year, but got cancelled due to lack of interest (only one RSVP.) This time I had as many as 14 RSVP's (including my kiddo,) which only dwindled down to 10 at the actual event, which is a great turn-out!

A take on Bakerella's Pumpkin Pie Bites

Makes 24

Recipe:
1 package refrigerated ready-to-roll pie crusts (should have 2 crusts,) room temperature
8-oz package cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar (Or less - see notes on Step 5.)
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs (Just 2 eggs if you're skipping Step 4.)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3 3/4"-ish wide pumpkin shaped or circle cookie cutter
mini muffin pan(s)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
[Steps 2-4 can be done before or after step 5. Your choice.]
2. Use a rolling pin to flatten each pie crust a little thinner than it comes when you roll it open. Cut as many pumpkin shapes out as you can. Combine and re-roll scraps. Use both crusts to make 24 pumpkin shapes (if you make a few more, that's okay. You'll have enough filling left.

3. Press dough shapes into mini muffin pan(s.) Use alternate cups, so the crusts don't overlap. You may need to re-use the same pan multiple times. You can stick it in the freezer after cooking and emptying to cool it quickly for each subsequent batch.

4. (optional) Separate egg whites from one of the eggs and apply to the top edges of each pie.
[I didn't bother with this step, and the crusts looked and tasted fine. I was not in the mood to separate an egg while surrounded by grabby little hands, and had no desire to sanitize someone else's kitchen after letting them loose with raw egg whites. Plus I hate wasting a yolk, just for aesthetics.]

5. Mix canned pumpkin, cream cheese, sugar, two eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined.
I actually had just grabbed a little Tupperware with sugar left over from my last cooking class, and it looked like enough, but apparently wasn't! So we didn't have a full 1/2 cup of sugar, and they tasted plenty sweet. Next time I'd like to try it with brown sugar! Yum!

May I recommend a food processor, mixer or blender? Preschoolers do not make the best mixers for this recipe! The cream cheese was very clumpy in this, and looks odd. But tasted oh-so-gooood!

6. Spoon mixture into each pumpkin-shaped crust. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until edges are golden brown.
[Cleverly took no pictures of this part. The kids kept dropping the spoon back into the bowl, getting the handle all gooey, so I spent this time grabbing paper towels and wiping off hands and spoons, with no time for my camera. I have no excuse for forgetting to take a pic after doing the other crust-worth after I got home, though.]

Their pies

Keep cooked pies refrigerated unless gobbled up immediately by hordes of hungry pint-sized chefs and siblings.

 

They were a huge hit! Only one girl didn't like hers, so 'graciously' offered it to her mom. Another mom was floored that both her kids gobbled them down, and asked for the recipe! Z ate her crust edge, then gave me the rest.
Since I managed to squeak out one for each child off of one pie crust, after we got home I made another round with the other crust. I did manage to make 12, which seemed impossible when I was doing them with the kids, but I had saved the scraps from the first crust too, so I had a little wiggle room. Either my cutter is larger than Bakerella's, or I wasn't pushing them as deep into the muffin cups. And I had plenty of filling left over. It was pretty tasty... until I remembered that it contains raw eggs. Not that I worry about that normally, but while I'm willing to risk myself on a bad egg, my attitude is different when pregnant!

MY batch

Tips for making this with kids:

1. I measured out all the ingredients, but let the kids pour into the bowl. I helped one boy crack the egg (he really wanted to crack it!) and we cracked it into a smaller bowl first (actually one of the measuring cups, after it had been used for the sugar.) This way you can pick out any errant shell bits, as well and make sure it's not a bad egg before contaminating the whole thing. It's also a great way to let the kids add the eggs if you don't want them actually touching them.

2. I rolled out the dough, mostly because we didn't have time for me to let them mess it up. But kids LOVE using the rolling pin, and if you don't care about having to fix it over and over, let them! 

3.They were all able to make a pumpkin shape with the cutter on their own (well, the under-two crowd needed a little help from their mommies. But it was still great fun!)

4. Whether or not you plan to use an electric mixer, you can let the kids mix the ingredients as you go.

5. They each put their pumpkin dough on the hole they wanted, then I helped them fit it in better. Then they went to town spooning in filling. Some were messy and overfilled, but who cares? One of the nice things about pumpkin pie filling is that it cooks solid, so wasn't oozing out all over after baking. It just cooked right on!

6. Using our senses: We talked about the various ingredients as we used them. I showed them the container of sugar and the can of pumpkin mush and asked if they could guess what they were (there was a picture of pie on the front, but not a pumpkin.) I had them sniff the pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice (if interested.) I also offered tastes on everything except the raw eggs. I had a bunch of dishwashable flexible cutting mats from Ikea as our work surface, so I just poured, sprinkled or plopped stuff down for them to try. Since I apparently didn't have enough sugar, they just used their fingers to scrape up loose granules off the empty container that got passed around.

7. While they cooked, I read a few books. Had I planned ahead better, I would have picked only pumpkin-themed books, but she was already in bed when I was packing my tote of stuff, and most of the books were in her room. I had some from the Scholastic order that had just arrived from her school that I was doling out (so she isn't overwhelmed and underimpressed with 23 new books at once. This way she gets a new one or two every few days and is excited about each one.) So I had only one pumpkin book, and some Autumn-themed books. We read Five Little Pumpkins, 
Let it Fall!, 
and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. 

 

  

Project Lunch: Apple Pie Purses

To celebrate Fall (and the apple theme at our co-op preschool this month,) I chose mini apple pies as this month's Kids Cooking Class recipe. I found a fun, kid-friendly pie recipe online, where the kids mix the crust ingredients in a plastic baggie, but I didn't want to do the math to divide it up so each kid could have their own bag, and didn't want to have to go over them all again to make sure it was really combined properly. So I opted for a little biscuit-pie purse-type recipe.

Mini Apple Pie Biscuit Purses

Makes 10
Ingredients:
12-oz refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough tube [We could only find 16-oz and 10-oz, so we went with a 4-pack of the smaller ones.]
1 medium-sized tart apple, peeled and finely chopped [I chose Granny Smith]
1/4 cup raisins [I skipped these. I hate cooked raisins, and they aren't always popular with kids anyway. Plus, who ever heard of apple pie with raisins? Ice cream, yes. Raisins? No.]
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp butter [read on...]

Directions:
Step 1 [Steps 1 and 2 can be done in any order]: Combine apples, sugar and cinnamon. Oh, and raisins. [Yuk.] Mix well.

I had pre-prepped the apples, since I didn't want to be doing a lot of knife-work with a bajillion kids underfoot [Okay, 7.] So to help them feel like part of the process, I passed around the bowl and asked them to smell and look and try to guess what the little food bits could be. One boy said they looked like fruit, which was going to be one of the questions I asked (fruit or veggie?) to help them along. Yay! Then I let everyone taste some, and they all identified the apples right away.

I let the kids sniff the cinnamon (I had no takers for taste-testing it.) For the sugar, I poured some out onto a plate and let them taste it (always a very popular one, for some reason...)

Then the kids took turns adding in a teaspoon of cinnamon or tablespoon of sugar. I was making a triple batch, just to be sure I'd have enough that they could each make a few. So that meant 3 tsp of cinnamon and 9 tbsp of sugar. I only put in 7 tbsp, and there were no complaints.

Whoever wanted to mix got a turn at mixing, and then everyone got to reach in and take a bit to taste-test. I think the bowl went around two or three times... it was very tasty, apparently!

Step 2: Roll out the biscuits into 3"-4" circles.

This time, I cleverly brought along flour to prevent sticking! Score! But I could only find one of my two rolling pins, and my plastic pastry mat kept curling back up. Luckily my hostess had nice little rubber pastry mats, plus extra rolling pins!

Step 3: Place a tablespoonful of apple mixture onto each biscuit and dot with butter.
Um. Oops. Totally forgot the butter. But at 2 tbsp/10 biscuits, that would be roughly 6 tsp of butter, so a little more than 1/2 tsp butter patty on each one. And since my biscuits were smaller than the 12-oz package, we did roughly 2 tsp of mixture, depending on who did the scooping!

Step 4: Pull/pinch sides of dough together at the top to form a purse.

We had a few sealed purses, but mostly open pouch-looking things. But the apples stuck to the dough while baking, so they all turned out okay.

Step 5: Place in muffin tin cups and bake at 375 F for 11-13 minutes, or until golden brown.
The recipe I got this from said to bake in ungreased muffin pans, but mine have grunge permanently affixed to the bottoms, and I know from past experience that this biscuit dough sticks to paper liners, so I PAM'ed my tins, and they popped out great and weren't all greasy or anything... although I had forgotten the butter...

Darnit! I forgot to take my muffin tins home too! Good thing my hostess and I go to the same co-op preschool and our kids are on the same soccer team... I'm sure I'll see her again soon! Plus she lives, like, only 6 or 7 blocks away... Uphill though.

Step 6: Enjoy!
I wrote down on a piece of paper which kid had made which one (based on the muffin tin slot it went into,) and then labeled paper bowls to put them in after cooking, but no one asked to verify that they were eating THEIR apple pie, so maybe I needn't have bothered.

They were tasty, but the butter would have made them a little moister and, well, buttery-er! Since the tops end up being big clumps of dough (with fewer apples, since they tend to shrink a little and stick to the bottom,) the butter would have been nice. Ah well.

I had 7 kids, aged 1-1/2 to 5ish (6?) The 1- and 2-year-olds mostly did tasting, but they each rolled out a biscuit and ate it after they were cooked. The older kids each made two. Then I made one for each of the MOMS, so we could try them too!
This was definitely something that kids aged 5+ could do mostly on their own (after you cut the apples.) They might even be able to do most of the peeling. Since the measurements don't have to be exact, as long as they don't grossly overdo it on the cinnamon and sugar, they can even measure it themselves. And since the apples baked right in, even when the tops weren't sealed, as long as someone can help them keep the apples in the dough pouch to get it into the tin, they don't need to do a perfect job sealing the purses either.
The 2-year-old was able to help pour in measured ingredients (she could have done it on her own, but my spoons were heavy and linked on a ring, so I didn't want the whole bunch to unbalance her hand.) And even the 18ish-month-old was able to help pour in measured ingredients (with me helping hold the spoon steady and get it all into the bowl,) and even did a rudimentary job of rolling out her biscuit.
All-in-all, a very kid-friendly recipe!

I had brought along the book Apple Pie Tree, to read while they cooked, but the kids were having fun playing, and I was busy making sure everyone washed flour and biscuit dough off their hands and took off flour-y aprons before joining the collective, so the kids were all scattered. By the time I was ready to read, the timer went off. So Z and I read it together later.
The story follows the cycle of an apple tree through the seasons, and even incorporates how some animals interact with the tree and the process (bees pollinate the flowers, birds nest in the tree, etc.) A fun book for season-awareness and nature cycles. Plus there's a recipe for apple pie in the back!
I'm having a problem with my Amazon Associates links, so I'll update later with a picture of the cover.

Check out some other fun storybook-related activities and lessons!

Also linking up with:

 

Project Lunch: Eating Healthy, EasyLunchBox-Style!

I've been wanting to introduce the kids (and their moms, of course) to bento-style/waste-free lunches for a while now. But I was worried about the cost. Until I discovered Daiso and their $1.50 (plus tax) bento boxes. But they probably have BPA in them. And they're small, so would require the kids to cut things up small to fit inside. And they might have a hard time stacking them the right way and getting the bands on them (band sold separately, 2/$1.50 or $1.50 each, depending on style.) Plus, I'd have to buy a variety of fresh produce, to give the kids choices. So it would cost a little more, with the food plus box to take home, and I wasn't in love with the boxes, for this age group and purpose. So I shelved the idea for a while.
Until I got a discount code from EasyLunchBoxes.com! I went in with a bunch of my friends, so shipping was negligible (it's free if you buy them on Amazon, or up to $9 flat-rate direct.) I ordered a few extra sets of boxes in preparation for finally getting to do a packed-lunch cooking class! (I ate my share of the shipping since I was ordering myself one of their new hot pink bags as well!)
So I got it scheduled just in time for back-to-school, where the reusable EasyLunchBoxes might come in handy, and to get the kids in a healthy-packed-lunches mindset!
We ended up having 6 kids, plus mine, since it was sprinkling out and we were doing this at a park, so we had some no-shows. It was a nice number for doing this, since I had enough space for everyone! (I was originally going to set up stations and have the kids move from sandwich to fruit to cheese etc. This way they mostly got to stay with their place-mats.) They were ranged from age 3 to 6 (or 7?) plus a bonus 12-year-old.

We started off making the sandwiches. I brought my  Butterfly Bytes, DynoBytes and SweetBytes (heart) cutters (I found mine at Winco, but I hear they've been seen at Safeway, so probably at other grocery stores too. Probably hanging from the shelves on the bread, baby, PB/Jelly and/or cereal aisle.) I also brought my Lunch Punch Animals set and Whimsical Set (Fairy Tale.) No one chose any from the Lunch Punch Transport set, and I didn't bother bringing the Puzzle ones. And I couldn't find where I had put the new Train Bytes cutter (from Winco.) I also had a star cutter from Dollar Tree and some weird dino/lizard cutter I found years ago hanging up at Safeway.

For our grains options, I brought both wheat bread and some tortillas, in case anyone preferred to make a roll-up sandwich. Plus I looooove Nutella roll-ups! (On those pasty white Mission tortillas. Not the wheat ones as much. The regular ones with Nutella taste like chocolate donuts. Yummmm!)

I opted for spreads rather than meats and cheese for our protein group, since the spreads would be more sanitary than a bunch of kids grabbing at lunchmeats. And easier to use the cutters with, for the littler podlings. Plus they were all able to spread their goop around (even if it wasn't done evenly!) I had squeezable grape and strawberry jams, Nutella, honey, and peanut butter (creamy. We prefer crunchy, but it can be a choking hazard.)
There were a lot of creative filling combinations! And everyone chose bread, so they could use the cutters. Except one boy chose a tortilla with spreads, folded in half, then put INSIDE bread with spreads!


The veggies weren't very exciting, since, other than peeled cucumbers, they're mostly too hard for kids to cut with butter knives. So I got some baby carrots, fresh green beans, and some peas in pods (snap peas?) and let them choose any combination they wanted, as long as they filled the little compartment of the lunch box.

The dairy (cheese) and fruit options were much more fun!
For the dairy, I brought slices of Colby Jack and mozzarella cheese and mini cookie cutters, plus some cheese sticks, in case anyone wanted to make nibblets instead. I brought my mini Easter cutters, mini dino cutters, and mini transportation cutters. Everyone but Z chose to make cheese shapes. She enjoyed hacking and pulling apart her cheese stick to put into the compartment.

I brought strawberries, black (seedless) grapes and blueberries as our fruit options. I had planned on including bananas, since the kids could cut them with a butter knife, but all the ones available were too green. But I did bring my long (4"?) sandwich frill picks, so they enjoyed cutting up strawberries with butter knives and making fruit kebabs along with the grapes and blueberries.

I often don't include a dessert or treat in our lunches, but there were yogurt-covered pretzels in the bulk section at Winco, in four flavors: raspberry, blueberry, cherry and cinnamon. So I got some of each, and let each kid pick four to put in a cupcake liner for dessert. I brought my Wilton Dancing Daisy Flower cups and some butterfly design ones from Target at Easter as girly-er options, since I have a surplus of both. For the boys, I had accidentally bought two packages of the Wilton Pirate combo packs with picks (I got mine at Party City online, plus must have picked up another pack somewhere else,) so brought one.
I limited them to 4 each not to be a scrooge, or because I was going to run out, but because when kids take a packed lunch to school, they decide what order to eat things in. So this way, if they chose to start with dessert, it's not going to be as filling as, say, a cupcake or package of Twinkies. I've found that a cupcake liner (or mini liner!) is an adequate size for a treat, like Cheetos, chocolate-covered raisins (mini liner!) cookie, etc. Since the size of a small child's stomach is roughly equivalent to his or her closed fist, keep that in mind when tossing a pre-packaged bag of anything into your child's lunchbox! Most individual serving-size packages would be pretty filling to a toddler or preschooler, leaving no room for the veggies!

Their Masterpieces

Train and mini car cheese (on butterfly liner,) fruit kebabs,
LunchPunch dolphins sandwiches,
Nutella roll-ups (under kebabs, with Pirate flag pick)
carrots, yogurt pretzels (in Pirate liner)

Yogurt pretzels (butterfly liner,) ButterflyBytes sandwich (under,)
grapes kebab,  strawberry kebab,
cheese ducks (all with eyes poked in using flag pick! Butterfly liner)

Yogurt pretzels (butterfly liner,) snap peas, loads of fruit kebabs
on frill picks and Pirate flags, ButterflyBytes sandwich.
(Lactose intolerant, so was excused from dairy requirement.)

Yogurt pretzels (in plastic cupcake liner package insert!) snap peas,
fruit kebab, cheese dinos, mystery dino sandwiches (with tortilla inside)

Z's Lunch: hacked up cheese stick, snap peas,
LunchPunch fairy PBJ, fruit kebab and black grapes.
The pretzels were eaten before I could snap a pic.

My lunch snack (since we were off to swim class right after.
Plus I wanted a Nutella roll-up!):
Grapes, carrots, mystery cheese scraps (found left on a mat,) Nutella roll-up

I didn't manage to get pictures of all the kids' lunches, but they all packed a balanced meal (possibly a little heavy on the jelly, though!) Since all the kids I knew were coming were 2-6, I kind of planned it based on helpful serving sizes I found online for toddlers/preschoolers. So assuming they each ate their whole lunch, they each got approximately:

1.5-2 servings of their 6 Grains per day (1 slice bread = 1 serving,) 

up to 1 serving of their 2 Proteins (2 tbsp PB = 1 serving,) 

1 of their 2 Dairy servings (2 oz cheese = 1 serving,)

1-2 of their 2 Fruit servings (1 tbsp/year of age* = 1 serving,)

1 of their 3 Vegetable servings (1 tbsp/year of age* = 1 serving)

*up to age 6. After age 6, recommended 1/2 cup serving sizes, same as for adults.