the yummy yum yum yums

Baking is a new favorite creative activity over here. Ellie loves to "help" and then watch the goodies bake in the oven. And then while she waits to eat the real treats, she makes her own treats in her little kitchen.

It makes me really happy to have this time with her and then to create space for her to play by herself.

So I've been pinning a few recipes that we can make together. Sunday we tried what we are now calling the "yummy yum yum yums," which is Ellie's favorite thing to say when she really loves something she eats.

Here is the original recipe for cinnamon brown butter breakfast puffs from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen.

I followed the recipe exactly (though used milk instead of buttermilk like it says you can because that is what we had). 

Ellie helped me measure and stir and all that good stuff, but I decided not to let her help me dip the puffs into the butter and cinnamon sugar mix even though the original reason I decided to make them with her was because I thought she would love that part.

Here's why: 1) She was having a lot of fun playing "tea party" with her daddy and I didn't want to stop that flow, 2) the puffs baked so beautifully I just really wanted us to be able to eat them warm like the recipe suggests and I knew it would take three times longer to dunk and roll them if I had her help (and even though I let that part go with every other recipe we've made together, dude, do you see that photo below? I wanted to eat them ASAP), and 3) I melted the butter while the puffs were cooking so it was still pretty hot when it was time to dunk them (so this really should be number one) and I was worried it would be too hot for her to help. Next time I will melt the butter first like the recipe suggests, so that it is a lot cooler when we get to this step.

After I rolled them (and tried a few...ahem...), we moved their tea party to the kitchen table and shared some puffs that were quickly renamed "yummy yum yum yums" by all of us. 

Highly recommend this recipe. Jon and I both think the "muffins" would make great cupcakes or would be awesome warm with jam. I froze the ones we didn't eat and am already looking forward to warming them Saturday morning. Yes.

(And oh my gosh, a year later I've finally written a cooking post! More to come as I've been cooking more these last few months...I just keep finding my way...)