The Baker's Apprentice

This morning Ollie's playdate cancelled so we found ourselves with a free morning. Oliver has been talking about going down to the fire station to see the fire trucks for a while so I decided to make that our outing. It's beginning to dawn on me that I get a lot more out of our little jaunts than Ollie does. He likes nothing better than to stay at home and play at "Ollie's fouse" as he calls it. I however, NEED to get out of the house, whether that be to the gym, the grocery store or even the fire house, I can't spend a whole day cooped up in our house.

So...with that outing in mind we decided to make some treats to bring over to the firemen. We made these, frankly delicious, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They were a big hit with everyone, Elliot included. Should I be feeding a 6-month old cookies yet??? Probably not. He certainly thought it was a good idea and made all sorts of happy noises as he gummed away at a (chocolate-chip free) cookie.

Oliver's newest favorite, race car Lightning McQueen, took part in our baking adventure this morning. After we finished mixing the flour (Oliver uses his bare hands to sift the ingredients...I promise he washed them!) Lightning had some "off road" adventures making tracks through the flour on the counter.

The cookies turned out really well. The recipe is below. They were so good that I realized I would eat them ALL if I didn't get them out of the house so in addition to the plate we made for the firemen, I brought some over to a friend and neighbor. Ryan, there is one (1) left, I'm saving it for you. :-)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
or...I just used 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Position a rack in the middle of the oven . Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices together in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture to incorporate it. Mix in the chips.

Scoop by teaspoons onto parchment paper. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

This is my kitchen after a morning of chaos...usually a scene like this would drive me crazy. For some reason I just want to document it and remember that sometimes it's ok to let the house get really messy. Notice the toilet paper "race track" in the background and Ryan's shoes that Ollie was wearing around this morning.

And finally, here we are at the fire station. The firemen were really nice and gave Ollie this helmet and a coloring book. He was a little shy and scared at first but he warmed up.