Of cloverleafs and carrots
While there has been some baking going on here, most of it has been very pedestrian; basic stuff like sandwich breads and pain au levain. With our kids and their kids coming home for the Thanksgiving weekend, an opportunity arose to inject some variety. On the day before Thanksgiving, I made 2 dozen oat-wheat pan rolls. On the morning of Thanksgiving, I made cloverleaf rolls.
The treat there was that my just-turning-4-years-old granddaughter, who is very much interested in helping in the kitchen, asked to be involved in the process. So, Grandpa got some help from Miss Carmen. She helped with the early stages of mixing. Later, she assisted with the "smushing" (aka: kneading) of the dough. Then she helped with shaping the rolls. The pictures, regretably, have vanished.
It wasn't long before rolling simple balls of dough for the cloverleafs became boring. So she switched to making carrots. Although a bit blunt and rather crooked, they did indeed look like rather stumpy carrots. She was quite pleased with the effect. The photographer, sadly, did not record this variation; she was probably distracted by Younger Brother. Grandmas tend to be easily distracted by grandchildren, especially by 2-year-olds with huge brown eyes. Carmen was delighted with the outcome and made sure to ask for a carrot roll with her meal.
Grandpa is still bemused by the way that much help resulted in more work to be done. Even so, it was lots of fun.
Paul