Kid-Tested Recipe Cards

"What, exactly, are 'Crispy Cupcakes'?" I asked tentatively.

"It's a recipe I invented," said 8-year-old Jackson. "Here, I wrote it down for you."

He handed me a sheet of paper with a carefully printed list of ingredients and an illustration penciled in beside each item. Stifling a laugh when I saw that Crispy Cupcakes required four cups of baking powder (with a little mountain of powder drawn beside it), I explained that baking follows certain rules.

I printed an applesauce cupcake recipe (search "applesauce cupcakes" on www.bhg.com) and had Jackson copy the ingredients and quantities beside his own. He quickly discovered that the baking powder mountain should be shaved down to a molehill, but was pleasantly surprised to see he'd come close with other ingredients. After making some adjustments, we moved on to the "crispy" part of the recipe, which Jackson hadn't developed beyond the title. From a cranberry muffin recipe, we added the instructions for a crumbly, brown-sugar-and-butter streusel topping to our recipe.

Next, we searched online for free clip art to decorate our hybrid creation. The younger boys (Nolan, 5 and Aaron, 3) honed their scissor skills by cutting out images of cupcakes, a muffin tin, apples, and sacks of flour and sugar. After baking Jackson's Crispy Cupcakes, I took a photo of him with the finished product, printed it and added it to the bottom of the recipe page.

I started thinking about some of our favorite dinners, like chili and macaroni and cheese with broccoli. I dictated the recipes to Jackson, while Nolan and Aaron helped cut and paste some more clip art.

Eager for any excuse to visit Grandma's, we used her home office laminator to protect our recipe cards from future kid cook-offs. (Home office laminators start at around $50, and many copy shops will also laminate your kids' creations). Using a three-hole punch, we filed our recipe sheets into a binder for future use.