Fall and Baking with Kids

Today is officially the first day of Fall. Ah, I'm so excited it's finally here. I did a little cleaning up and organizing this weekend. I rearranged my China cabinet to accommodate more of the cake stands I keep buying. It's an addiction, I tell you! I rearranged my cookbooks and bookshelves and while I was at it, I set out all of my Autumnal decorations. Now if only I could find someone to put my laundry up and dust for me, I'd be all set :-)

Look for the Lucky Leaf Premium. It's made with real sugar rather than corn syrup.

I'm a nanny and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I pick the little guy up from school. He's only 3 years old so he goes to a Montessori preschool and they're teaching him about Fall. He kept saying that he couldn't wait for Thursday so the leaves could start falling. If only it worked that way. I told him that first the leaves had to change from yellow to orange to red or brown before they turned brown and fell. He was so excited to go to the window and see that the leaves were turning yellow. Then he declared that he wanted to bake a pie for Fall (I love this kid!). When I told him that he'd have to wait til we got all the ingredients to make the pie he started crying, "I want to baaake. I want to baaake." I couldn't help myself, but I laughed :-)

ooh, so pretty!

He then took a deep breath and wiped his crocodile tears. I cut him a healthy slice of chocolate birthday cake and we sat at the kitchen table to read through cookbooks- Joy of Cooking and Deceptively delicious, if you're curious. We read through the pies and tarts sections in which we found pumpkin pies, pecan pies and several fruit tarts and galettes. None of those were good enough. He went to the fruit basket, grabbed a plum, a peach and a couple limes and said that's all we needed, no pie crust necessary. We didn't bake today but we might tomorrow.

I made this dessert a couple weeks ago, alone in my own kitchen, but it's simple enough for your little helper to make it on his/her own with a little supervision. It's called dump cake, which is rather gross if you ask me so I'm calling it crunch cake. There is no mixing required, just layering ingredients in a pan, pouring on some melted butter and baking it. It's surprisingly good and if you use the Duncan Hines Butter Recipe cake mix, it tastes a little less artificial. It's sweet, fruity and crunchy, very similar to a fruit crisp. It's good warm with ice cream or cold straight from the fridge. I used cherry pie filling, but blueberries, blackberries or peaches would be good too. Get your kids in the kitchen and bake- Fall is here, so celebrate! And if you don't have kids of your own, invite the neighbors kids over or go rent some for the day :-)

If you're interested in a pumkin crunch cake, click the link.

Pineapple Cherry Crunch Cake adapted from Paula Deen

Printer Friendly Version

• 3/4 cup butter, plus more for dish
• 1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple, in juice
• 1 (20-ounce) can cherry pie filling
• 1 (18.25-ounce) box yellow cake mix
• 1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 13 by 9-inch casserole dish.

Melt 3/4 cup butter in saucepan over low heat.

Pour the pineapple with juice into the casserole dish and evenly spread cherry pie filling on top.

Cover with dry yellow cake mix and top with pecans, if using. Drizzle with melted butter and bake for 35 to 45 minutes.

NOTE: I was reading the reviews for this recipe, and someone complained because she was expecting a cake, not a fruity crisp. So please note that this is not your typical fluffy iced cake, it's a cake mix used to make a crisp topping :-)

If you haven't already, go enter my giveaway sponsored by Novica!