Rainy Day Kid Fun

With the weather being the yuck-fest it has been over the last several days, my brain has been drained of all interesting and creative thoughts.  Thanks to High-Five Magazine and Williams Sonoma Kids Baking cookbook for providing some basic entertainment for my girls while I helplessly stared out the window.  Ok, I didn't really just stand there and stare.  I pouted over the stove while the girls put these tidbits together:

Paper Bag Town, complete with preschool and diner, among other favorite landmarks, as well as the addition of several dollhouse toys, a community piano, and three pools for local enjoyment.  Apparently the sun is shining in PB Town.

And on to this most-awesome, and equally most-easy, Puffy Apple Oven Pancake, which Addie made for breakfast AND for dinner.

What you need:

an apple
4 Tbs sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp vanilla

Stir together 2 Tbs sugar and 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and peel and chop up the apple.  Stir the sugar mixture and the apple together, then dump the apples in the bottom of a greased pie dish.  Bake it at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.  While that's baking, mix everything else together until it is smooth an frothy.  The WS recipe called for use of a blender, but I didn't feel like getting that dirty, so we just stirred the stuff like crazy, one kid at a time, until it was frothy.  Pour this into the pie dish with your apples after they've baked for 5 minutes, then cook for another 25 minutes or so.  The pancake should be puffy and turning brown.  It should look like this:

If you want, sprinkle confectioners' sugar over the pancake.  We didn't have any, so we used regular sugar.  Not as pretty, but it did the trick.  The girls loved it-- for breakfast AND dinner.