still no cookies, but microwaved applesauce

I promise more sweet things will arrive soon, but in the meantime, did you know you can make applesauce in the microwave? I'm guessing you did. I, however, did not.

My almost-four-year-old loves to help me bake. I'm pretty dang proud of how she wields a rolling pin and frosting bag. She even creates recipes. They are usually completely and totally impossible and make no sense in the physical world. Often, these recipes derive from her desperate desire to cook something NOW based on what foods we have in the house. Like when she insists that mixing up some juice from her juice box, crackers and vanilla extract and baking it in the oven will produce pink cupcakes. I sometimes indulge her. Like when she wanted to mix grapes and salt and cook in the microwave. (Note: don't do this. It creates a very, very bad smell.)

But then she had the idea of cutting up apples, mixing it with water and microwaving it. Hmmm. Apples, a heat source... sounds like applesauce, she eats applesauce. She doesn't eat much, but she eats applesauce. Though it probably wasn't necessary since the recipe seemed logical enough to test, I googled "microwave applesauce" just in case. I found THIS.  So we pared and cored a Granny Smith apple, chopped it in 1-inch pieces, put it in a microwave-safe glass bowl, I let my daughter sprinkle the apple with a tiny bit of sugar, we omitted the cinnamon (no brown flecks for my picky eater), and we microwaved it for about 5 minutes.Then, I poured the contents in a fresh bowl, since the bowl was so hot, and let my daughter mash it with a potato masher. Yum. It was good. Really good. I imagine more apples would need more minutes, and perhaps next time I'll add a bit of apple juice or other natural sweetener, but this was a quick and easy applesauce.

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I should note that my picky eater, who takes picky to a level I can't understand, still didn't eat the applesauce she herself made because it didn't come in a little cup from the store. Sigh. I'll eat it though.

And PS. Find the how-tos to make the fondant worm HERE.