Abagail loves to create. She will sometimes get bored and say, "Can I cook something?" I have learned to approach that question with caution. Usually she opens the cook book and picks a recipe that would not EVEN appeal to me. Not because it wouldn't be tasty, but because it is complicated and I am all about ease and simplicity.
For Christmas Abagail chose to make Salt Water Taffy. I've never made taffy. She has never made taffy. We purchased a candy thermometer to try to get the best results on our attempt. Abagail followed the recipe to a "T". Sadly, what we ended up with was not salt water taffy. I'm not sure exactly what it was. It was a green, gooey, sticky confection. We tried to pull it, honestly we did (see photo) - but it got sooooo mushed to our hands that we were unable to work with it. In the end Abagail passed out the pre-pulled candy and the kids enjoyed every bit of it.
Another night I came home at 9 p.m. to a wonderful smell of fresh baked cookies. Abagail had asked dad if she could make sugar cookies, at about 7:00, on a school night. She did an amazing job - I was very impressed that she had made the cookies with no help. However, the kitchen was in a poor state: flour, cookie dough, sprinkles and ingredients, bowls, etc. were all over the counter, table and floor. It was quite a sight. I shooed the other kids off to bed and Abagail and I tackled the kitchen. I later realized that the cookie I had tasted came from dough we had in the freezer. The dough Abagail made was chilling in the fridge. So - she made the dough, realized it needed to chill, decided she wanted cookies right then, pulled out frozen dough and baked that. (Might it have been easier to just bake the frozen dough in the first place?)
Abagail's latest creation was to make home made donuts. She found the recipe, gathered the ingredients and got to work. I was sick that day so Abagail did the entire process, minus the frying, completely alone. She made the dough, did the two risings, rolled and cut, made the glaze and frosted the finished product. It took 6 hours start to finish. Abagail was very dedicated throughout the process. She was SOOOO proud to serve the donuts to the family for breakfast the next day. The donuts were very tasty. Everyone was impressed.
The experiment lead us to two conclusions:
#1: home made donuts are a LOT of work
#2: store bought donuts no longer seem so expensive
Can't wait to see what she creates next!
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