Small Bears' Baking Day

We bears can't go out to have adventures while this nasty virus is about, so we are having small adventures at home.

Last Monday, Polar asked if we wanted to take turns helping her in the kitchen, baking scones, shortbread and some quiches.

Hanley Bear wanted to make cheese scones.  Polar showed him the recipe and he busied about finding and weighing out the ingredients.  He needed plain flour, some baking powder, butter, milk and cheese.

The bag of flour was too heavy for a small bear to lift, so he supervised while Polar weighed out the amount they needed.

Then he cut some pieces off the butter, which Polar weighed and added to the flour, while Hanley grated lots of cheese.

Polar had to rub the flour, butter and cheese together, but Hanley Bear stirred in the milk and when Polar put the dough out on the worktop, he rolled it out by balancing on the rolling pin and running backwards and forwards!

Then he cut out some big scones for Polar and Grizzly, and some little scones for us, and put them all on a baking tray.

He was so excited when they came out of the oven, golden-brown and smelling lovely and cheesy.

Meanwhile, Endon had found the recipe for shortbread.  He needed flour and butter too, but more butter than Hanley had used, plus some sugar.

He had to cream together the butter and sugar but this was very hard work for a small bear, so Polar helped him.  Then they sieved in the flour and mixed it all together with a little bit of orange juice.

Endon didn't think he could balance on the rolling pin, like Hanley had done, but Polar said he didn't have to, because the shortbread mix was just pushed down into a round baking tin. 

Polar squished the dough into the tin and Endon used a fork to make the pattern around the edge, before marking out the pieces carefully with a sharp knife.  Then Polar put the tin at the bottom of the oven to cook, where it wasn't so hot.

My job was to make the fillings for two quiches.  Polar had already made the pastry cases for them, as small bears can't make pastry without getting very messy paws.

My first job was to chop up some onions and fry them gently until they were lightly browned.

Polar partly cooked the pastry case, then we mixed cheese and herbs in with my onions, added a couple of beaten eggs, and put the mixture in the pastry case, before it went back into the oven. 

The other quiche had a filling of cheese, chives and broccoli, using up the last little pieces from the broccoli plants in our garden, so I had more chopping and cooking to do.

By the time we had made the filling for the second quiche, the first one was cooked.  I wanted to eat it at once but Polar said we were going to freeze them and eat them on warmer days, with salad and new potatoes.

Finally, all our baking was cooked and cool enough for us to get close enough to sniff it.  Hanley Bear couldn't wait to try his cheese scones, so he shared a couple of them out between us while Polar was washing up.  He thinks she didn't see him, but she did, although she does not mind because we all worked hard and scones are very, very delicious when they're fresh!