cherries in january

It feels like it's been winter for a year right now :  ice, snow, mud, wind, ice, cold.  Accent on the cold.  But something did cheer me up when I was foraging at our local small supermarket - I found cherries!  Right in the freezer section, tucked onto the middle shelf, one remaining pouch of plain sweet cherries, which I snatched up doubletime quickly, before anyone else saw them.  And they're delicious.  I've been eating them slightly thawed  most of the time, but today being Sunday, I decided to make a comforting winter dessert - not too sweet, and not sticky, gooey, or fussy.    This cherry clafouti is all those things, and I'm delighted to know I can now make this summery dessert even in the middle of winter.

I've made Julia's traditional clafouti batter, but never made a clafouti with cherries, which was the original fruit for them.  I made blueberry and strawberry clafoutis in the summer, but never cherry, silly me.  I used a different batter, from The Essential Mediterranean cookbook I picked up at Border's before they closed.  I think it cost $4 on the sale table, and the pictures are lovely.

Clafoutis are similar to frittatas, if you've ever made them - not puffy or cakey, but a dense,  light mixture of milk and cream, a little flour and sugar, eggs, and fresh fruit.  They whip up in ten minutes, and bake for 40 minutes , giving you plenty of time to set the table and stir the soup.

To make one 10 inch clafouti:

Lightly butter a pie pan - I used a ceramic fluted pie/tart pan.
Preheat oven to 350F.

1 heaping cup of frozen cherries, pitted
3/4 cup King Arthur all-purpose flour
2 extra large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup milk ( I used 2%)
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 oz. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
pinch of nutmeg, kosher salt, and about 1/3 t. vanilla
confectioner's sugar for dusting

Spread the cherries over the bottom of the pie pan.

In mixer bowl, add the flour and then the eggs and mix well.
Add the sugar, milk, cream and butter, and the nutmeg, vanilla, and salt, to the flour mixture, just until combined and smooth.  Do not overbeat.

Pour the batter over the cherries and bake for 40 minutes, or until the top is firm when gently pressed.

Remove to cool, then cut into slices and dust with confectioner's sugar.

Enjoy!

Irish scones beside the fire

Apologies for the long between-posts.  There is always much to do, and when we had several very cold days, I spent hours wrestling with a cranky woodstove, taking lovely long hikes, picking up pine cones and fallen branches, courtesy of Hurricane Sandy, to add to my basket of kindling for that blue enameled beast that sits in the kitchen.  Early mornings, I run up the hill beside the house and greet the sun, and then?   I'm not quite sure what goes clattering through my head:  I think a lot.  As a sometime poet, I start with a random glance at a photograph of my grandmother-I-never-knew, and end up thinking about the Irish/Welsh/English threads that run on both sides of my family.

Today, instead of falling into a book, I made these charming, delicious scones again, happy to be mixing the dough, and, 25 minutes later, eating those hot, flaky bites, with puddles of melting butter, scented with lemon and nutmeg, juicy raisins, and a swift small sprinkling of sugar on top;  wondering if my grandmother-I-never-knew was as pleased with them as I am.  

To make about 8 scones:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Fit a baking sheet with foil or parchment.

6 T. cold butter, cut in small pieces

1/4 cup King Arthur whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour

2 t. baking powder

pinch nutmeg, or 8 scrapings from a whole nutmeg

1/4 t. freshly grated lemon zest

pinch salt

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup raisins

Place flours and cold butter pieces into a mixer bowl and mix until incorporated. It should look crumbly.

Add the nutmeg, baking powder, lemon zest and salt.

Mix well.

Pour in the buttermilk and raisins and mix until it just holds together.

Using a normal size ice cream scoop, scoop batter out onto the baking sheet. This should make 8 scones. Sprinkle with a little sugar, if desired.

Place in oven for 25 minutes - they should be golden and craggy looking.

Remove to cool on cooling rack.

Serve with soft, sweet butter and marmalade or jam, as you wish. Delicious alone, too.

tiny ginger scones

It's been chilly the last several days - woodstove and hot coffee weather, but also perfect for  walks.  I almost stepped on these beautiful, tiny Princess Pines, not even six inches tall,  but stepped aside just in time.  When I first moved here, I used to dig them up and arrange them in pots with paperwhite bulbs, but they always yellowed and faded away, so now I just admire them where I find them growing naturally, leaving them untouched.

Of course, I needed a little something to go with that lovely cup of coffee, so I made a batch of tiny ginger scones, sprinkled inside and out with diced crystallized ginger.  Not much bigger than 2 inches by 4 inches ( though you can make them even smaller, if you want) they were just the right size for a nibble, and very easy to whip up. Because ginger is such a warming spice, it's perfect for these autumn days.

Tiny Ginger Scones

Preheat oven to 400F.
Line a baking sheet with clean foil, shiny side up.

2 cups King Arthur flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
6 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into dice
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
good pinch of kosher salt
1/2 cup crystallized ginger, snipped into small dice with scissors, plus a little more for the scone tops
a little bit of beaten egg for an egg wash

Place flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in food processor.  Mix briefly.

Add the cubes of cold butter and process just until the butter is incorporated into the dry mixture, making coarse crumbs.  

Scrape mixture into mixing bowl, and add the buttermilk, the egg, and the snipped ginger, making sure you have some of the diced ginger for the scone tops.  Mix just until the dough comes together.

Pat the dough out on a slightly floured counter into a log shape.  Mine was about 2 inches by I don't remember, maybe 14" or more.  Square it off with your palms, then cut the dough into squares, which you then cut diagonally into triangles.  It just seemed to be easier that way to get nicely shaped scones.  This made 14 little scones.

Remove scones to baking sheet, brush with egg wash, and sprinkle with the diced ginger.
Bake for 18 minutes, or until slightly browned on top.

Remove to a cooling rack then enjoy with unsalted butter.  I just realized these would be wonderful for Thanksgiving Day breakfast or tea time with family and friends!  

lemon muffins and the last of the tomatoes

What an odd two weeks I've had - laid low with pneumonia, of all things, and quite wobbly. I was very happy to have the new Julia book to read  - have you read it?  It's called "Dearie, the Remarkable Life of Julia Child" by Bob Spitz and although he goes over familiar ground, there is much about her older years and her connections with younger chefs and her commitment to classical French culinary training that I've found fascinating.  

After a good two weeks off, I was seized with a desire for something more than peppermint tea and oatmeal.  Lemon poppyseed muffins popped into my mind, but a quick search of the fridge turned up pistachios , but no poppyseeds.  That was an easy substitute, and I loved the crunch of the pistachios.

This recipe made several Texas-size muffins (2 scoops of batter per muffin) and a dozen regular sized muffins (1 scoop of batter per muffin) so I'm guessing this would make around

2 dozen small muffins.  They freeze well, IF you have any left over.  I always end up dropping off extras to several friends who are passionate about these particular muffins.

Glazed Lemon Muffins with pistachios

Preheat oven to 330F.

Grease your chosen sized muffin tins with vegetable shortening.

zest of two lemons, grated

3 cups King Arthur all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar, plus more for the glaze

2 t. baking powder

6 extra large eggs

1 T. vanilla extract

6 T. milk

3 sticks (24 T.) unsalted butter, softened

Grate the lemon zest into mixer bowl.

Add the flour, sugar and baking powder and mix.

With mixer on low, add the eggs, vanilla, and milk.  With mixer still going, cut in the soft butter and beat until batter is smooth and creamy.

Using a regular sized ice cream scoop ( I use a spring-loaded one, well worth the investment)  scoop batter into muffin tins - one scoop for regular sized ones, two scoops for Texas sized ones.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, but I start checking the smaller muffins at 30 minutes. The muffins should be firm to the touch when you press the centers gently.

Remove muffins to a cooling rack and make the glaze:

Lemon glaze:

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup white sugar

several tablespoons finely chopped pistachio nuts

Place the lemon juice and sugar into a small saucepan, bring to a simmer, and simmer for about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat .

Gently remove muffins from muffin pans and set on cooling racks set onto baking sheets.  Brushing the muffins with the glaze is sticky business, so this will contain the mess.

Brush the muffins several times with the warm glaze and sprinkle with the nuts .

As you see, I did pick some of the last of the cherry tomatoes from my very neglected in-town garden.  I discovered after planting that there was no water supply, so I let it languish in the hot, dry summer weather - and the tomatoes suffered.  

sticky lemon cake for Julia

Yesterday was Julia Child's 100th birthday, had she lived to share the day.  Because she meant so much to me, I wanted to make her a cake.  I settled not on a recipe from her many and wonderful, read-in-the-middle-of-the-night cookbooks, but from a recipe I adored and had made many times.  Sticky lemon cake is perky with lemon juice and zest, and just dandy any time of the day.  Divine with sliced strawberries or blueberries, raspberries sprinkled on top;  instead, I added a branch of rosemary ( for remembrance) and a tiny viola flower, in love and thanks.  I chopped up a handful of pistachio nuts, just for the color and crunch but you can use berries instead.  Happy Birthday, dearest Julia!

To make:

I used two small, 6 inch heavy wedding cake pans, greased with vegetable shortening (Crisco)

Preheat oven to 330F.

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

zest of a lemon 

2 extra large eggs

2 1/4 cups King Arthur flour, all purpose

1/2 t. baking soda

kosher salt or Vege-sal

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 T. fresh lemon juice

1/4 t. nutmeg

2 T. chopped pistachios for garnish - or fresh berries

Cream the butter and sugar well, along with the lemon zest.  Add the eggs and mix well, then add the flour, baking soda, salt,nutmeg, buttermilk, and fresh lemon juice.

Scrape into the cake pans, dividing equally, and smooth the tops.  Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until tops spring back gently when softly pressed with your fingertip.

Remove cake pans to cooling rack.

The lemon glaze:

While the cakes are cooling, make a lemon glaze:

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

Place in a small saucepan and stir, then heat until hot, and until sugar has melted.  Remove from heat.

Run a dull knife around the sides of the cakes, then remove, top side up, to cooling rack.  Brush with the glaze several times, then sprinkle with nuts or garnish with berries.  Let set for at least 1/2 hour before cutting.  This cake freezes well, so feel free to freeze one of the cakes for later. Just wrap firmly in double plastic wrap before setting in the freezer.

Enjoy!

buttermilk pear cake

My goodness!  When I went to write a blog post, I discovered Blogger completely changed the format overnight and I am lost.  Forgive any visual glitches - I have no time to figure this out this morning.

I brought home the most wonderful bag of small pears the other day, and was suddenly reminded of an old recipe, given to me , oh - probably 30 years ago.

You make a soft dough and press into a tart or cake pan, arrange sliced pears on top, and add streusel and voila!  I often make these as little tarts, but I thought I'd try a little cake with my new 6 inch cake tins.  It's a terrific size for 2 or 3 people and it came out beautifully.

Makes one 6 inch cake

To make:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Butter a small 6 inch cake pan, or two or three tartlette pans.

The topping:

1/2 t. ginger

1/2 c. sugar

2 T. soft, unsalted butter 

1/4 t. nutmeg

1 t. grated lemon zest

pinch of kosher salt

Mix the ingredients well and set aside.

The pears:

2 medium pears, unpeeled but cored, sliced

The dough:

1 c. King Arthur all purpose flour

2 t. baking powder

pinch of kosher salt

1 T. of the topping

3 T. soft unsalted butter

1/2 cup buttermilk

Mix in mixer bowl or food processor just until combined into a soft dough.

Press the dough into the cake pan or tart tins.

Sprinkle a little topping on top of the dough.

Arrange the pear slices in a circle .

Sprinkle with the rest of the topping.

Bake for 36 minutes or until top is golden.

Let cool briefly, and run a dull knife around the cake.

Tip onto a plate, then top with another plate and flip back.

Serve beautifully.

Exciting weekend for me - my daughter is getting married!  What are you up to?  Hope it's wonderful!

meringues for izzie

My granddaughter, Izzie, is about to turn 6. Can you believe it? How can it already be 6 years since I first held her, not even a day old?

The first few years of her life, I indulged. I baked cookies and muffins, made pasta soups, and pasta salads, cakes with fresh flowers and creamy frosting, which she adored. We spent hours cooking together, and it was such a delight. But she wasn't feeling well at all, and it was only when my daughter took her to a specialist, did we find out she was gluten-intolerant, as well as (sometimes) , allergic to dairy.

As a baker, I should have embraced this new challenge, but instead I stopped baking. I arrived at her house with lots of fresh fruits, and little else. Slowly, oh, so slowly, I'm feeling my way to cooking and baking in a new way, and one that will be something she can share in, with her usual delight and passion for good food. Today, I experimented with meringues, sprinkling a pinch of (gluten-free) sparkles on the tiny swirls of airy egg whites.

Happy Birthday, Miss Isadora!

pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting

The snow has finally melted from our freakish Halloween snowstorm that left us with 26 inches of way too early white stuff, so now I can breathe. I had visions of seeing snow on the ground from October to April, which was not a happy thought. Yesterday I took a lovely long walk, smiling at the still-bright leaves on the trees and the not-too-chilly temps. And then I headed straight to my stash of canned pumpkin.

Pumpkin is to me what chocolate is to my children - addictive, rich, the essence of Fall. I love it roasted, baked, sauteed - and in the most delicious cakes, cookies, and bars you can imagine. I did once try a pumpkin mousse, but didn't like the texture. Give me a lovely pumpkin bar, juicy with raisins and smooth with a handful of milk chocolate chips, then topped with my favorite cream cheese frosting. Heaven - and the heck with the diet today!

I recently found a recipe for pumpkin pie spice in bulk - something I would never buy, but it does come up in recipes, so I made up a few tablespoons of the mix. It called for:

4 T. cinnamon

1 t. nutmeg

1 t. ginger

1/2 t. cloves

Mix well and store in a bottle.

Pumpkin Bars with cream cheese frosting:

(recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod, adapted)

1 1/2 cups flour

pinch of kosher salt

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 t. baking soda

1 cup pumpkin puree, canned

1/2 cup canola oil

1 egg, extra large

1/4 cup buttermilk

2 t. pumpkin pie spice mixture

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease an 8"x8" square baking pan with Crisco. Cut to fit a strip of waxed paper that covers the bottom and ends of the baking pan, with a few inches to spare, so you can lift it out easily when it's done. Grease the waxed paper as well.

Mix together the pumpkin, canola oil, egg, and buttermilk. Add the sugars and stir, then add the pumpkin pie spice and stir.

Add the flour and baking soda to the mix and briefly mix. Add the raisins and chocolate chips and stir briefly until combined. Spread into pan and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the batter is firm to the touch. Remove and cool for ten minutes, then lift the cake out, firmly holding onto the wax paper ends. Set on a cooling rack.

Set a cooling rack on top of the pumpkin cake, then flip the cake. Peel off the waxed paper, and flip back to cool on the rack.

Making the cream cheese frosting:

1 8 oz. package of softened cream cheese

1 stick of room temp unsalted butter (4 oz)

juice of half a fresh lemon

3/4ths box confectioners sugar

Mix all well until creamy and set aside.

The finish:

Trim the edges off the cooled pumpkin cake.

Using a dull knife, swirl the cream cheese frosting all over the cake.

Cut the cake into 6 pieces ( more or less, as you wish)

Remove bars to a plate and tidy up the frosting.

Indulge!

More pumpkin recipes!

Pumpkin-cinnamon muffins

Big, soft, pumpkin cookies

Pumpkin cake with clementine frosting

Spicy pumpkin cake with sugared ginger nuggets

Enjoy every bite :)

peanut butter icebox cookies and the poetry of loss

After seeing my mother a week before she died in February, I came home and lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. I did that for a few weeks, then I began to read. I was always a reader, but this was different. I'd stay up sometimes until 3am, then get up at 6:30 and get on with my day, stopping by the library for another armful of books. And when both my children suddenly announced they were both moving away ( which, by the way, I think is wonderful), I kept reading. Now I also go on long walks, and am less faithful to posting on the blog on time. It's a process, and I think it's a healthy one.

But this summer there's been a flurry of sudden, sad deaths: a friend also lost her mother last week, a baby bird in my lilac bush lay broken-winged and still , a foodblogger lost her young husband to a sudden heart attack. When a call went out to make his favorite peanut butter pie, I could only manage to make this lovely peanut butter shortbread cookie from Maida Heatter. Here it is, in memory of Mikey, and blessings to his little girls and his lovely wife. May God hold them tenderly.

Maida Heatter's Peanut Butter Icebox cookies:

First you make the dough and let it sit in the freezer, before slicing and baking.

2 cups King Arthur flour

1/4 t. baking soda

1/4 t. cinnamon

1 stick ( 4 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/3 cup smooth or crunchy peanut butter

1 t. vanilla

1/8 t. almond extract

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

1 large egg

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon and set aside.

Cream the butter and peanut butter until smooth, then add the vanilla and almond extracts and both sugars and mix well. Add the egg and mix again. Then slowly add the flour mixture and mix until it forms a ball of dough in the mixer bowl.

Remove the dough, squeezing and rolling it into a sausage shape, about 12 inches long, and 2 inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap, place on a cutting board, and place in freezer for at least 40 minutes. ( you can also use half the dough now, and the rest later - just place in a freezer bag if you do that)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Line two baking sheets with foil or parchment.

Take out the log of dough and cut 1/4 inch slices off the log, transferring them to the baking sheet, about an inch apart.

Bake for 18 minutes and remove to cool.

To make sandwich cookies, just spread with more peanut butter, or leftover frosting, then top with another cookie.

Some favorite books this week:

Evidence, poems by Mary Oliver

Grace (eventually) by Anne Lamott

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich

The Poems of Stanley Kunitz

The red Garden by Alice Hoffman

strawberry saturday

Warm fresh strawberries, crackly meringue cups, and softly whipped cream for before the fireworks tonight!

lunch-to-go: chocolate-chip muffins

I'm a lunch on the go, brownbagger from way back, and when I saw Maria's chocolate chip muffins, I got a little gleeful. How perfect are these for a little after lunch treat? They're highly portable, without sticky frosting – and each batch makes a dozen muffins, so you have, oh, maybe enough for 6 days. Make that 3 days, with enough to share. Semi-sweet chips in a vanilla buttermilk batter make for a very tender and tasty muffin – my humble thanks, Maria! To round out my lunch, I slid in a slice of frittata, and a watercress, tomato, and romaine salad with some of the leftover golden beet and brussels sprouts dish I made two days ago mixed in. And on my way out the door, I put my new rosemary plant out on the step – it's finally 50 degrees!

~ To make: Recipe from Two Peas and their Pod

~

2 cups King Arthur all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 t. baking powder

½ t. salt

1 stick melted unsalted butter ( 8 T)

2 extra large eggs

2/3 cup buttermilk

2 t. vanilla

1 ¼ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

~

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 12 muffin tin with paper liners. Place the flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt in mixer bowl. In a medium bowl, mix together the eggs, melted butter, buttermilk, and vanilla, then add to the flour mixture. Add the chocolate chips and mix briefly. Using a regular sized ice cream scoop , scoop one scoop into each muffin cup. If you don't have an ice cream scoop, just fill with two tablespoons to about 3/4ths. Bake for about 18-20 minutes, remove and cool on rack. This makes 12 regular sized muffins.

brown sugar banana cupcakes for the New Year!

Happy New Year to all! Above you see the grand and splashy sunset last night, with the sun going down between two mountains. I wasn't the only one that had the sudden thought to stand in a high place to wave goodbye to 2010 - there were four other people and two lively dogs, snuffling around in the snow, looking for - well, dogs always seem to find something exciting wherever they go.

This morning, I decided to make what is now becoming a tradition - New Year's cupcakes, but this time I chose to make a fluffy, moist banana and brown sugar cupcake (divine), and lots of that pale, shell pink cream cheese icing everyone loves so much. So even if the day is a little gray and gloomy, these cupcakes are waving their sprinkles and tooting their horns.

To make cupcakes:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Place cupcake papers in a traditional 12 cup muffin tin,

although this recipe makes only 7 cupcakes.

Adapted from Cupcakes, by S. Kaldunski

~

1 1/4 cups cake flour

3/4 t. baking soda

3/4 t. baking powder

pinch of kosher salt

1 large or two small ripe bananas

1/4 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. lemon zest

2 T. sour cream

1 T. milk

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 extra large egg

1/2 t. vanilla extract

~

Using a sieve, sift together the flour, baking soda and powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

Mash the bananas, sour cream, milk, lemon zest, and cinnamon together in a small bowl and set aside.

In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together until fluffy, then add the egg and vanilla.

Add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture and mix on low.

Fold in the mashed banana mixture gently.

Using a regular size ice cream scoop, fill cupcake liners about 3/4ths full.

Bake approximately 25-30 minutes, or until cupcakes are firm to the touch when gently pressed in the middle of their tops.

Let cool five minutes, then remove cupcakes from cupcake tin to a cooling rack. Let cool for at least an hour before frosting.

The Cream Cheese frosting:

4 ounces cream cheese, softened ( the smaller size)
1 stick ( 8 T.) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 t. fresh lemon juice
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 drop red food coloring

Beat all the ingredients together until very creamy. Scrape into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and , beginning at the edges of the cupcakes, squeeze the frosting round and round, pulling up at the end. Sprinkle with pretty edible doodads.

~
So, what's up with your brand new life? Musings, meditations, job searches? I suspect in addition to all of those, this may be the Year of the New Dog, having accidently picked up now THREE books about women and their dogs; the universe must be trying to tell me something.
Blessings and love to all, and hopes this will be a wonderful year for you, full of love, joy, and walking the dog.

The dog books:
let's take the long way home by gail caldwell
scent of the missing ( search and rescue dogs) by susannah charleson
and abigail thomas' a three dog life

the easter cake

This has become our traditional Easter cake - an old fashioned southern carrot cake with a cream cheese and butter icing, decorated with marizpan vegetables. This year, we had a two year old assisting, so our decorating wasn't as elaborate as it usually is. But the crowd was delightful , the dinner was grand, and for a few magical moments, we forgot about the four foot high hardpacked snow and ice outside and welcomed Spring!

to make:

2 or 3 cake pans, greased and floured

Preheat oven to 350.

the cake:

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup canola oil

2 cups flour ( I use King Arthur)

2 t. baking powder

2 t. (scant) baking soda

2 t. cinnamon

3 cups finely grated carrots, organic

Beat eggs; add sugar, oil, and dry ingredients. Add carrots and stir. Scoop batter into pans, about halfway full.

Bake about 35-45 minutes - sometimes it takes longer depending on the moisture content of the carrots. Done when the cake pulls away from the sides of the cake pan, and the middle is somewhat firm to the touch.

Remove to cooling rack. Run a knife around the edges of the cake, and cool 15 minutes. Take a spatula and gently loosen the underside of the cake. Flip onto another rack and cool completely before frosting.

the frosting:

1 large package cream cheese

1 stick softened unsalted butter

juice of a lemon

one box confectioner's sugar

Beat til creamy and pipe or spread on cake.

vegetables:

Mix food coloring into store bought marzipan ( I get it in tubes) - we just made green and orange, but you can get more eleborate.

Form into carrots and stick into frosting. Tradition is - the youngest child goes first pulling the carrots out of the cake.