Baking Day - Pies and Cinnamon Rolls

The girls and I had so much fun baking yesterday.  It ended up being an all-day affair with related books, crafts, and other activities in between the actual baking.  We read the book, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman..

It's a beautifully illustrated book about a girl who travels all over the world to get the ingredients for her apple pie.  We talked about where different foods come from.  Some the girls already knew (milk from cows, eggs from chickens), and some I had to describe (like cinnamon from bark, flour from wheat, etc..).  Then I took out their First Picture Atlas and some laminated map place-mats and talked about maps and the different parts of the world she traveled.  This geography lesson was really brief because I'd like to follow more of a Montessori approach to geography this summer starting with the basics.  They did, however identify water from land, and enjoyed having me point to places where different relatives live.

For our daily art project, I let the girls mix cinnamon into their paint and make their own apple pies:

It was fun to add a different sensory experience to our usual painting, and the results smelled delicious!

While I was making the (gluten-free) pie crust, L and E played with play-dough and made their own pies:

Then after a break from a doctor's visit for Baby H, we resumed the baking.  The girls helped me roll out the dough:

They also helped me put the pie together, but I had to assist and could take any pictures.  After we made the apple pie, there was a lot of dough left, so I decided to make a chocolate pudding pie, as well:

The girls enjoyed mixing the pudding, but they liked liking the plates the most, of course:

...  they took the term 'licking the bowl' a bit literally!

After the 2nd pie, there was still a bunch of dough left, so we made cinnamon rolls. After rolling out more dough, the girls spread some softened butter on it:

 Then they sprinkled sugar and cinnamon:

We rolled it up and cut into slices:

Although everything turned out delicious, I would have been perfectly happy making just one of these dishes with the kids instead of all three.  Next time I'll only prepare half the dough or freeze the leftover dough for another day.  Here are the finished desserts:

Yum!  Baking day with my kids was so enjoyable, but I'm really glad we only have baking day every month or so - the pie crust recipe used two sticks of butter!