Stitching with Elli

Ellen was in a baking mood again. She wanted to make some cookies to send to the soldiers. Samantha said she was willing to help….and the next thing ya know they are both in the kitchen again! (I don’t know how I ever have any time to be in the kitchen myself…It seems like there are always some dolls in there cooking 😉 )

“What are we making?” asked Samantha. “I don’t know what it is…but I bet it has butter and flour in it!!”  She had all ready started pulling out the ingredients.

“Good guess,” grinned Ellen while she dumped some butter in the bowl. “We are making Spritz cookies with a cookies press!!”

“A Cookie press? What is that? Are we going to squish cookies???” Samantha was very intrigued.

“Will it smash our fingers?”

“No it is umm.. It is a tube…with a wheel thing on top… You spin it and the cookie dough comes out the other end.  Oh, and there are metal disks with cutouts in it. They are the things that shape the dough when it comes out. It is hard to explain, but I’ll show you when we get there.” Ellen fumbled over explaining the cookie press.

Samantha was more confused than before she asked.  Ellen distracted her by having her measure out the flour and other dry ingredients into the sifter.

“Ellen, is it supposed to be baking powder or baking soda?”

“Powder”

(pause while Samantha finishes measuring the dry ingredients and sifts them )

“What would happen if I put the wrong one in?”

“Did you????”, Ellen asked, startled and anxious that the cookies might be messed up.

“No. But what if I did?”

“Let’s not find out. Don’t scare me like that! I almost broke the eggs” Ellen fussed. Ellen tends to fuss if she gets anxious or stressed….

…and separating egg yolks from egg white is apparently very stressful.

Ellen couldn’t decide which egg to crack first. Samantha tried to sooth her by saying it didn’t matter which one was first, since she had to do them all. Ellen sighed and said she guessed that made sense. She just wanted to be sure she did it right ,and maybe one of these eggs was easier than another one.

“Well, if you start with the easy one then you can practice…and if you start with the hardest one, then all the rest will be easier!” Samantha said optimistically.

Cheered up, Ellen dove in and started cracking eggs.

Samantha was very excited about the way the egg separator worked… and since it all worked properly, Ellen was excited about it too 😀

Ellen got out the cookie press for Samantha to see, while she mixed up the rest of the batter.

Samantha had fun looking at all the shapes and trying to guess what they looked like after cookie was pushed through them.

“Ellen, can we do butterflies?”

“But butterflies aren’t Christmassy! Don’t you want to do a Christmas-looking cookie?” Ellen replied.

“Mmm, I suppose that is true…How about a camel? I want to see what a camel looks like.” Samantha replied.

They each decided to pick one design. Ellen picked a Christmas tree for her design.

They loaded the camel disk into the cookie press and Ellen started showing Samantha the process.

“First you have to load the dough in here…” Ellen explained as she worked.

“Then you put the press down where you want the cookie.. and twist the top down until it squishes out the bottom.”

“Tada!! A camel!!” Ellen cried triumphantly as she pulled the cookie press up. She had been a bit worried that it would not come out right…because it didn’t always. Sometimes you had to scrape the cookie up and put it back in the bowl.

“And that is how you make a cookie with a press.” Ellen said dramatically with one hand on the handle of the cookie press and the other pointing eloquently upward.

Samantha helped her do more camels…and then she wanted to color the dough for the trees.

Ellen was finishing up the camels, making sure they were all straight on the cookie sheet.

Samantha stirred for a while, and then began getting concerned….”Ellen? Is this the right color green?”

Ellen said “Oh dear, no, it isn’t. That doesn’t look like a food color.”

“But trees aren’t a food.” Samantha defended the color weakly, but she didn’t think it was a pretty color either.

Ellen said that in this case, these were food trees , so they had to look like food and a tree both. She added a different shade of green ,and stared into the bowl to see if it was getting better.

They decided the new color was much better. Ellen started making Christmas tree cookies.

“Ellen?”

“Mmm?” (Ellen was busy thinking about how may sprinkles would be a “healthy” amount of sprinkles)

“Can I lick the bowl when we are done?” Samantha inquired hopefully.

“No! That isn’t hygienic! Plus, raw dough isn’t safe for dolls to eat. It has raw egg in it! That doesn’t agree with our stuffing.”

“Oh,” said Samantha crestfallen “How bad is it?” (She was considering risking it.)

“Besides, we should be good stewards and scrape the bowl really well. That way we  don’t waste anything.” Ellen was very sure that licking the bowl wasn’t a good idea.

But I *think* Samantha might have had a taste when Ellen wasn’t looking.

I’n sure one little taste won’t hurt Samantha 😉

After the cookies are done. The dolls are going to box them up and send them overseas….but that is a story for a different day 😀