Well, how about the giant grin
That comes with snickerdoodle cake
These cupcakes are one kind we make
INGREDIENTS FOR THE CUPCAKES
4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter
4 cups miniature marshmallows
4 cups any crunchy, cinnamon-flavored cereal
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
INGREDIENTS FOR THE FROSTING
3 cups powdered sugar
⅓ cup butter, softened
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons milk
1 to 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
DIRECTIONS FOR THE CUPCAKES
1. Line nine regular-size muffin cups with paper baking cups.
2. Spray an ice-cream scoop with no-stick cooking spray.
3. Put the cereal into a plastic bag. Use your hand to crush the cereal.
4. In a 2-quart saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat until completely melted.
5. Add the marshmallows and keep stirring until all of them are melted. Remove the saucepan from the stove.
6. Stir in the crushed cereal and the cinnamon so that the cereal is evenly coated.
7. With the ice-cream scoop, scoop the mixture into the nine muffin cups.
8. Let the cupcakes cool for about 10 minutes. While they cool, make the frosting.
DIRECTIONS FOR THE FROSTING
1. In a medium bowl, mix the powdered sugar and butter with a spoon, or use an electric mixer on low speed.
2. Stir in the vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon of the milk, and the cinnamon.
3. Slowly add just enough of the milk you have left to make the frosting smooth and spreadable. (If the frosting is too thick, add a drop more milk. If the frosting is too thin, add a little powdered sugar.) Frost the cupcakes and enjoy!
Nell’s Feel-Like-You’re-Flying Biscuits
The trick with these is a light touch
You mustn’t knead them very much!
INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour (not self-rising!)
Several extra tablespoons flour to spread on work surface
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into thin slices and chilled in freezer until hard
¾ cup cold buttermilk
2 more tablespoons buttermilk for brushing biscuit tops
Butter, honey, or jam to serve with biscuits
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda together twelve times in a large bowl.
4. Cut frozen butter into flour mixture with a pastry blender until the mixture looks crumby or bumpy. This will take about 5 minutes. If you don’t have a pastry blender, use a fork or the side of a spoon.
5. Use a spoon to make a well or depression in the center of the butter-and-flour mixture.
6. Pour in the ¾ cup buttermilk and stir until just combined. (Not more!)
7. Turn dough onto a floured work surface. Using your hands, pat it together into a rectangle. Don’t worry if it looks messy. It’s supposed to be that way.
8. Fold the rectangle in thirds, the way you would fold a sheet of paper to put it into an envelope. Gather any crumbs and flatten back into a rectangle again. Repeat twice more, folding and pressing dough a total of three times.
9. Using a rolling pin, roll dough on a floured surface to about ½ inch thick. Cut out 12 biscuits using a round biscuit cutter, or drinking glass, about 2 ½-inches in diameter.
10. Transfer biscuits to the prepared baking sheet. Using your thumb, press an indent into the top of each biscuit. (Thumbprints help the dough to rise up straight!)
11. Brush a little of the 2 tablespoons of buttermilk onto the top of each biscuit.
12. Bake in the preheated oven until browned, about 15 minutes, and remove carefully. Transfer to a plate. Serve with your choice of butter, honey, or jam.
Although these biscuits will be light and flaky, they won’t fly out of the oven. But for an extra-special Pixie Party, you can thread a large-eyed needle with kitchen string (made out of cotton!) and poke it through the top of an unbaked biscuit. Tie the ends of the thread in a simple loop and bake. Once your biscuit is out of the oven, attach a helium balloon by its string through the biscuit loop. If the biscuit is light enough, you will have a flying biscuit.
Super-Chocolatey Birthday Wishing Cake
If you know someone with a dream
You want to make come true,
Baking them a wishing cake’s
The perfect thing to do!
Into the batter you must chant
The most important part:
A rhyme that you’ve created
With your words and with your heart.
Here’s one more thing to close this rhyme:
Baking this cake takes LOTS of time!
INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKE
1 wishing rhyme that includes the words “wish” and “hope”
2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
A little extra cocoa powder for dusting pans
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup freshly brewed coffee or 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 cup boiling water, cooled to room temperature (Note: If someone in your family drinks coffee in the morning, ask him or her to make an extra cup and put it aside for you.)
1 cup buttermilk at room temperature
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
3 large eggs at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
INGREDIENTS FOR THE FROSTING
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 pound cream cheese at room temperature
2 pounds confectioner’s sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Tube(s) of icing in your choice of color or colors
DIRECTIONS FOR THE CAKE BATTER
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Position a rack in the center of the oven.
2. Lightly butter three 8-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of each with parchment paper, butter again and dust with cocoa powder and tap out the excess.
3. In a large bowl, sift or stir together the sugar, flour, 1 cup cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
4. Add the cooled coffee, buttermilk, butter, eggs, and vanilla extract to the dry ingredients.
5. Over the bowl, chant the wishing rhyme you created.
6. Using a mixer set at low speed, beat for 2 minutes until the batter is smooth.
7. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into each layer comes out clean. Cool the layers in their pans for 10 minutes, then invert them onto racks to cool.
DIRECTIONS FOR THE FROSTING
In a large bowl, use your mixer to cream the butter and cream cheese together on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes until they soften and combine. On low speed, gradually add the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla extract, and then increase the speed and mix for 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape the sides several times during the mixing.
DECORATING THE CAKE
1. Place one layer on a cake plate. Add a generous amount of frosting and spread it on top of the layer.
2. Add the second layer and repeat until all of the layers have been added.
3. Finally, cover the top and sides of the cake in frosting.
4. Use the tube(s) of icing to write the birthday person’s name and any message you wish.
Reversing Cake
Pretty on the outside,
But the wish thief will pay—
For the thing that she asks
Will f
ast slip away.
INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKE
1 tablespoon butter for greasing pan
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, very soft
2 tablespoons canola or safflower oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup cool water
A mirror
The chant (see below)
DIRECTIONS FOR THE CAKE
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cut the 6 tablespoons of butter into pieces and leave out on the counter to soften. Or you can press the pieces between two sheets of wax paper and use a rolling pin to soften them.
3. Use butter to grease a round or 8 × 8 inch square pan. If you prefer, line the pan with parchment paper.
4. With a fork or spoon, mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
5. Add softened butter, eggs, oil, vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons of the water. With an electric mixer, beat on low speed until ingredients are moist.
6. Turn the mixer to medium speed and beat for a minute. Using a spatula, scrape the batter down the sides. Add the remaining water and beat with mixer for another 30 seconds until the batter is smooth.
7. Now say this chant over the bowl:
When the wisher’s wish is spoken,
I hope you won’t obey
But turn the meaning inside out
And send it on its way!
8. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for 30 minutes. Poke a toothpick into the center. If it comes out clean, the cake is done.
9. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Then turn cake out onto a rack or plate to cool completely (at least half an hour).
FROSTINGS
You will be making two frostings for your Reversing Cake—one chocolate and one vanilla.
INGREDIENTS FOR BOTH FROSTINGS
A mirror
6 cups powdered sugar (3 cups for each frosting)
⅔ cup butter or margarine, softened
3 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
6 tablespoons milk
3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
2 tubes of icing, 1 chocolate and 1 vanilla
DIRECTIONS FOR VANILLA FROSTING
1. In medium bowl, mix powdered sugar and butter/margarine with spoon or electric mixer on low speed.
2. Stir in vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of the milk.
3. Gradually pour in the second tablespoon of milk, a few drops at a time. If frosting seems too thick, add up to 1 more tablespoon.
4. Beat with mixer until smooth.
DIRECTIONS FOR CHOCOLATE FROSTING
1. In medium bowl, mix powdered sugar and butter/margarine with spoon or electric mixer on low speed. Stir in vanilla extract and chocolate.
2. Gradually add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the milk and stir. If frosting seems too thick, add up to one more tablespoon. Beat with mixer until smooth.
HOW TO FROST A REVERSING CAKE
Using a frosting spatula or butter knife, cover half of the cake with chocolate icing and half with vanilla.
Now you will write the word REVERSING on the cake—from left to right and backward:
Be sure to use the vanilla icing tube on the chocolate side, and the chocolate icing tube on the vanilla side.
Hold the mirror over the cake and you will see the word REVERSING.
Everyday Snow
When the grass underneath is grilling your feet
And the sun’s shooting rays from the skies,
Not even a gallon of lemonade
Will keep the sweat out of your eyes,
When it seems as if only winter will help
But there’s months and months to go,
Then it’s time to conceive the perfect reprieve
By making summer snow!
INGREDIENTS
2 ½ cups baking soda
½ cup white hair conditioner (lotion)
DIRECTIONS
Measure the baking soda into a bowl. Add the hair conditioner and mix with a spoon until blended.
Knead the mixture with your hands until it sticks together so that it can be rolled into a snowball or molded into a mini snowperson.
* THIS SNOW IS ONLY FOR PLAY. DO NOT EAT! *
About the Author
ANNABELLE FISHER is named for her mother, who loved Mother Goose rhymes and read them to little Annabelle every night. The author, an honorary Goose Lady, lives in ye olde White Plains, New York. You can visit Annabelle and Pixie online at www.annabellefisher.com.
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Credits
Cover art copyright © 2017 by Natalie Andrewson
Cover design by Paul Zakris
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
PIXIE PIPER AND THE MATTER OF THE BATTER. Text copyright © 2017 by Annabelle Fisher. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Natalie Andrewson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
EPub Edition © May 2017 ISBN 9780062393821
ISBN 978-0-06-239380-7 (hardcover)
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
Greenwillow Books
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Pixie Piper and the Matter of the Batter Page 18