Baking Kids Love and Halloween Meringues

Good books on cooking with kids are hard to find, and it's even more uncommon to see a "serious" chef take one on. I was so pleased to see pastry chef Cindy Mushet, who won acclaim with last year's Art and Soul of Baking, follow that book up with Baking Kids Love. Written with the kid-input of Mushet's daughter Bella, it's a fun, colorful, approachable--but real--guide. Instead of the usual genre mainstays of arranging fruit in smiley faces or hiding vegetables in brownies, this one brings kids into the real world of the kitchen. They proof yeast, they melt chocolate, they roll out pie crust. It's just the sort of book I wanted to use with my own 7-year-old, so when I heard Cindy and 11-year-old Bella were coming to Seattle on tour, I asked "Baking with kids? Can they bake with my kid?" 

That's how they wound up in my kitchen, pastry bags in hand, making Halloween-style "meringue crispies" with my boy. The treats were meringue cookies stretched out into the shapes of "rattling bones and fingers," decorated with almond fingernails and melted-chocolate rings. My son is a veteran of one-bowl mixes like chocolate chip cookies and banana breads (both of which have a place in the book), but I hadn't ever given him more complicated projects. I was afraid that if he failed, he'd lose some of the pleasure he takes in baking. 

Mushet kept such fears in mind for the book, thinking hard about what to include so that kids (and, not incidentally, parents) could find kitchen success. Butter cakes did not make the cut, for instance, because not every modern-day parent knows how to gauge when the butter and sugar are properly creamed. Instead, there's the pretty "chocolate celebration cake" on the book's cover, which uses oil. Mushet also knows, though, that kids can rise to the expectations of adults; she's seen even 5-year-olds safely wielding knives and whipping up goodies. "Because I believed it, they could do it," she said.

The book started out with the recipes that Cindy and Bella loved to make together, then Bella proved a good sounding board for which gaps to fill and which recipes to leave out. Which recipes did Bella say to chuck? "Whole wheat bread". Sure, she likes it, but "Do I love it?" No. Instead, the book has pretzels and pizza dough, cinnamon rolls and monkey bread.

Baking is such a science, with success riding so much on correct measurements, I had to ask whether it was risky to put the recipes in the imprecise hands of children. Mushet noted that the book stresses the importance of measuring properly and following directions. And she shared this tip from when Bella was very young: She let her youngster measure out each ingredient, but had already pre-measured the precise amounts herself in advance. The correctly filled spoons and cups were the ones that went into the mixing bowl.

And our own baking experiment, with my boy? It was a delight. Cindy showed him how to separate eggs, and he proceeded on his own without a single speck of yolk going into the whites. "You're a natural!" she told him. Bella showed him how to judge the stiffness of the whipped whites, then how to pipe them into scary bones and fingers. He needed no directions on the sprinkled sugars and other decorations -- or, of course, on the eating. He's now the designated meringue chef in the family. We're both brimming with pride. 

Here's the recipe:

Meringue Crispies

Ingredients:
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
colored sugar or candy-coated almonds, for decorating

Tools:
Measuring cup and spoons
2 baking sheets
parchment paper
large bowl
electric mixer or stand mixer
14-inch pastry bag and 3/8-inch round plain tip

Directions:
1. Before you begin: Position one oven rack in the top one-third of the oven, and one oven rack in the bottom one-third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Making the meringue: Be sure your bowl and beaters are very clean and there is not a speck of yolk in the egg whites. Any dirt or grease will prevent the whites from whipping. Using the mixer, beat on medium speed until they look like whipped cream and form soft peaks. To check, turn off the mixer, lift the beaters straight out, and then turn them upside down. The slope leading to the tip should be soft and barely holding its shape. With the mixer on medium speed, add the sugar, about 1/4-cup at a time, shaking it gently over the bowl and letting it blend in slowly. Once all the sugar has been added, turn the mixer to high speed and continue to beat for 1-2 minutes, until the mixture is very fluffy and shiny and forms firm peaks. This is a meringue. Turn off the mixer and check the peaks again. At this point, the slope should be nearly vertical.

3. Pipe the cookies: Put the tip into the pastry bag. Spoon the meringue into the bag until it is half full. Grasp the bag just above the mound of meringue and twist it three times (this prevents the mixture from coming out the wrong end of the bag). Squeeze from the twisted part of the bag (after cutting off the end of the bag so the tip pokes through), while guiding the bag with a couple of fingers near the top. Pipe the meringue onto the prepared baking sheets into any shape you like: letters of the alphabet, rounds, or zigzags, for example, or bones. Keep the tip of the bag about 1 inch from the surface of the pan, and let the meringue fall out of the bag onto the pan in a thick rope. Once the bag is empty, untwist, open the top, and fill with the remaining meringue. Re-twist and continue piping until you have used all the meringue. If you like, sprinkle the cookies with colored sugar or press in candy-coated almonds.

4. Place one baking sheet on each oven rack. Bake for one hour. Turn off the oven and leave the pans inside overnight to finish drying the meringues. Tape a note to the oven door reminding your family not to turn on the oven! In the morning, remove the cookies from the oven and store them in an airtight container at room temperature. They will keep for up to 8 weeks, so long as they are kept dry.

 --Rebekah Denn