Bat cookies for Halloween

I needed to bake something for the Pumpkin Carving thing they do at school, and thought I would experiment with the bat cookie cutter we had kicking around.

I just used an everyday kind of simple cookie recipe, but added chocolate powder to darken the dough. Sonja helped to pick out the black sprinkles, and I used red icing from those handy little scribbler tubes to add eyeballs.

End result? Pretty darn cute, er, I mean, scary!

How to ration sweets

For a household that doesn’t typically have much sugary, sweet stuff around, there seems to be aplenty lately…

Ok, I usually have chocolate in the house. Good quality, Swiss chocolate made with cocoa butter, not just corn syrup. But we are not [huge] dessert people. Or heavily into the packaged goods like cookies and doughnuts. The kids eat candy because of Halloween and Valentine’s day and, well, Christmas. For some reason, living in North America means you celebrate everything with candy.

(Aside note: I analyzed the ingredients in a Twizzler candy once. Rather, um, appetizing…)

However, ’tis the season for sugar plums and candy canes, and I happen to have quite a bit of treats lying about the house. Homemade cookies, candy canes from school friends, endless treats from nice people who love us and our children…

So naturally, the 4yo constantly asks me for something.

Can I have a cookie?
Can I have some smarties?
Can I have a candy cane?
Can I have some gummy bears?
Can I have…

Makes me edgy, the never-ending demands.

So today, I decided on a method to ration their daily intake of Christmas-cheer. So to speak.

I said to the children:

What you see on this plate is what you get for today. There are a few rules:

1. You can have everything on this plate anytime of the day after you finish your breakfast.

2. Once it’s gone, do not bother asking me for more. The answer is and will remain no.

3. If you do not eat your meals at mealtime because you are full of all the treats, tomorrow’s plate will have less treats on it.

Doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. After all, it IS Christmas time…

Added later: By lunchtime the boy’s plate was empty. And we had left the house for an hour and a half…This is going to be a long afternoon.

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Special treats in armoires

My grandmother had a wooden armoire in her downstairs sitting room that contained special treats. Chocolates, cookies, or nuts in fancy tins. This armoire was a source of wonder to me, and although it contained an old-fashioned key, it was never locked.

 

(this armoire reminds me of the one my grandmother had)

That little room is long gone. My aunt Barbara, who took over the house after my grandfather died, completely renovated it to accommodate her own family. The little sitting room became one big living room when they knocked down a wall. 

 

But the armoire didn’t vanish into an antique market. It was moved with my grandmother to a new apartment where she lives to this day (at 91, no less!).

 

As a child I spent much time at my grandparents’ house. My sister, my brother and I grew up in apartments, so having access to a house, with an attic (!) and a garden (!) and a garage (!) was a wonderful thing for us kids. There was a balcony, a tiny pond, flowers, and a small lawn-bowling alley (on a dirt path beside the house).

 

And there was the wooden armoire in the sitting room.

 

As a child growing up in Switzerland, I had access to good quality chocolate and baked goods all the time. These treats were enjoyed regularly, but not daily. No one in my family is obese or unhealthy. Treats were considered just that, treats, something to enjoy with an afternoon tea or coffee, at a birthday celebration, or occasionally when the mood strikes.

 

My grandmother’s armoire contained those treats, in painted tins and boxes. It was a source of wonder for a child of 6 or 7. I liked that armoire!

 

Today, I see my own child open my glass-doored Billy bookcase from Ikea with the same sort of wonder. Sure, it’s not an armoire, but he doesn’t know that. What he knows is that inside the bookcase, behind the glass doors, inside a special basket, are heart-shaped Swiss chocolates and special cookies which we sometimes enjoy with tea.

 

Benjamin knows very well that those treats aren’t for everyday consumption. And he is a trustworthy child; I doubt that he would go into the basket and consume the treats without asking me first. Sonja, on the other hand, can’t be trusted at all. At 16 months, she opens everything all the time and tries out anything she can get her hands on.

 

Billy bookcases don’t come with keys. But the handle on the glass door is too tall for her to reach, and a simple elastic band keeps the doors “locked”.

 

It’s amazing to me how such an ordinary thing, like a bookcase with a basket full of treats, can bring back a flood of memories from my own childhood.