Little Pumpkin Spices Tea Cakes

Kids love routine. Pediatricians told me that many times... but somehow, I also discovered the hard way when agreeing to listen for the same CD over-and-over again on the same day... At first, I found it funny and cute but when I caught myself being able to hum the next song on that (and all the other CDs), I just realized that too much of the same thing, not matter how comforting, can't be that good. Except for two routines I really strongly believe in: bedtime and meal routines. The rest, I feel that it's actually a great idea to prepare children for change.  I have met SO many adults who can't deal with change that I want my children to be to handle change well. At their level, that is. Evidemment.

Despite my belief in mealtime routine, I decided to start making a change in the goûter routine (4pm snack), no matter hard it's going to be. You see my children love their goûter (and I love mine too!) However, I feel that, and as I already wrote, I now have a Pavlov son who has the hard time when the sac du goûter is not brought to school (either because I baked something that could not be transported, or we bought some pains au chocolat from the school to support the parents association or because my husband forgot to take the sac du goûter in the morning!! (Oops! BIG MISTAKE!!).

Since my children ride the public (not yellow) bus with their babysitter on most days, the goûter has to be easy to carry, not too messy, and let's face it, easy to prepare.  Hence, my favorite choices these days: a pouch of apple sauce with a few store-bought cookies. The weather was cold enough that chocolate-covered cookies could survive a whole day in school, so my children did get a lot of those over the past few months.  To the point that, in addition to the sac du goûter, they had come to expect chocolate-covered cookies. The minute I was sending them with something else, they came back asking me  "maman, pourquoi on n'a pas eu de gâteaux au chocolat pour le goûter?" That's when I realized that their goûter routine had to change. I'll keep the same bag (that's the easy part as long as my husband does not forget it)... but I'll change the content, especially if Spring settles in sooner than later! I'll use the weather as the perfect logical explanation (yeah, right!)... I know that they'll rebel a little bit at first but if I can find good alternative options, I'm sure I'll make their goûter more interesting. One of my trump cards (for the "starchy-sweet" part) are these kind of little tea cakes. They are so easy to make that I actually wonder why I have not baked more (well, working full time sounds enough of reason, non?).  I used Pumpkin spices because that's what I discovered in my cupboard (leftover from past Halloween), but you could really work out any kind of options. I'll add chocolate chips one day together with vanilla extract instead of the spices; that might keep my little rebellion at bay! Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:

- 1 1/4 cup flour

- 100 gr (3.5 oz) sugar

- 1 1/2 ts Pumpkin Spices

- pinch of salt

- 1 ts baking powder

- 85 ml 2.87 Fl oz) milk

- 85 ml (2.87 Fl oz) cream

- 80 ml (2.7 Fl oz) vegetable oil

- 1 egg lightly beaten

• Preheat ovent to 350F
• Butter cake molds and set aside
• In a bowl, mix in all the dry ingredients together.
• In another bowl, combine the egg, milk, cream and vegetable oil.
• Pour the liquids onto the dry ingredients and mix well.
• Pour the batter onto the molds about 2/3rd full.
• Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

My Personal Comments:

• You could use different spices (cinnamon, cardamon), add pieces of fruits (apples, pear, etc.) or even make it gluten-free...