The oldest mini is a lot like me in the fact that he likes to try things. It doesn't matter how something turns out, as long as we're able to try anything and everything. He also has high hopes for my cooking and baking abilities. I was not gifted abilities in the kitchen. I can make a few dishes that are loved by the minis, but mostly I just try stuff and if it works it's considered a big win. The oldest mini has shown more interest in helping out and experimenting in the kitchen. I'm all for it, as long as we can do it safely.
There's been a few ideas thrown around of what we should attempt to make: homemade pumpkin pie, homemade chocolate, homemade vegan bread. We settled on homemade caramels.
While the youngest mini was at dance class, I made a special Mom and Boys night for us while we made our caramels. We sipped warm apple cider and turned on Tom Petty as we went about our baking. I found this recipe that seemed simple enough and we had most of the ingredients already in our cupboard. If I had read about caramel making a bit more, I would have easily learned that it takes around an hour or more to make caramels.
Luckily, the boys were enthusiastic about stirring......for the first twenty minutes. Then it became a series of "my hand hurts!" "I have to pee!" "Mom! Will you stir again?? I don't want to!" There were also some questions about when they could eat the caramels (not until morning) and why they had to sit overnight (seriously, I don't know, that's just want the d*mn recipe says).
Towards the end, as the caramels began to thicken, the boys became enthralled with stirring again. Until they got into an argument and forgot to keep stirring, which the middle one blamed on not knowing the meaning of "constantly stirring the mixture." Because of some confusion about who was going to be pouring the finished caramels into the pan, the caramels boiled about two minutes too long. Which then resulted in the caramels getting too done. Instead of enjoying chewy caramels, we got rock hard, inedible caramels.
On this fall night, we made memories and inedible caramels. I'll bet they always remember that hour they spent fighting about stirring, me playing referee, and the caramels we couldn't eat. Aaahhh, memories.
The caramel that we attempted to break apart to eat. This is as far as we got before we gave up.