Cooking with kids: pigs in a blanket

In my final Mellow Bakers' post, I talked about how excited I was to be finished with my bread baking challenge(s). Finally, I'd have time to experiment! To bake on a whim. Hubby noticed tonight that I've been doing just that: making fun little desserts again, baking a spontaneous batch of rolls for a quick lunch, cooking for fun.

So, on a whim, yesterday I picked up a package of beef lil' smokies. When we got home from our museum adventures today, I mixed up a half-batch of PR's BBA white bread (with a little white whole wheat thrown in). Because it was already 3:00, I helped the dough a bit by letting it rise in my slightly warm oven.

Once doubled, I measured out 9 two-ounce portions which I rolled into balls. I used my rolling pin to roll out the rest of the dough into a big sheet of dough, about 1/8" thick. I used my pizza cutter to cut out one-inch strips, and then trimmed them to about 1 1/2". And this is where the kiddos came in: they rolled each strip of dough around one of the lil' smokies. As they rolled, they talked to their sausages, "Good night, little piggie. Time to go to sleep! I'm rolling you up into your little blanket!" And then they sang good night songs. Good times were had by all.

I let the pigs in a blanket (and the rolls) rest on their baking sheet for another 45 minutes or so, and then baked them in a 350º oven for fifteen minutes. Because I was brushing the rolls with melted butter, I brushed the piggies, too.

These were a huge hit! And unlike many bread baking projects, they actually had a pretty quick turn-around time. They're so tiny that they only needed to cool for about three minutes before the kiddos (and hubby) started gobbling them up.