Ten Pots a’ Boiling…60 Dumplings Cooking….

One hundred golden cookies! I'm not joking, that's how much food thirteen kids produced in two hours. This past week the Kids Café made Chinese dumplings too, but they also got to make Almond Cookies. We started out with the dumpling dough because as every child in any one of my classes knows, dough's gotta rest. Dough is easy to make, but it requires a lot of elbow grease. It's a workout, which I think the kids enjoy, but once they get the dough to the right consistency they are always glad to move on to chopping and mixing. This week they had a lot to chop and mix. Cabbage, scallions, ginger, tofu, soy sauce, egg white, and sesame oil were mixed together to create a tasty and fragrant dumpling filling.

While the dumplings boiled they got busy mixing and shaping almond cookies (the smell of Amaretto didn't go over very well with most of them). Everyone made at least six, although some made significantly more. While they were baking the kids got to eat their dumplings, and as soon as they emerged from the oven the cookies were devoured. There were quite a few empty plates at the end of class!