Do you know how to make Russian Tea? I had never made it before JDaniel and I made it recently.  I remember one of my college roommates bringing jars of Russian tea from home. Her mom made it all the time. She drank it both cold and hot. While I am pretty sure that a tea mixture made with Tang, ice tea mix, lemonade mix, and a few other ingredients is not a traditional Russian drink, we decided to make some and try it both hot and cold too.

What do you need to make Russian Tea?

1. Measure the sugar out and place it in a medium size bowl.
2. Add in the jar 3/4 cup of half lemonade and half iced mix.
   
    
3. Stir until you feel that the two mixes have been combined well, but not too long your child or you have a lot of mixing left to do.
4. Add the 2 teaspoons of cinnamon to the mixture. Be sure to measure the cinnamon carefully. Cinnamon add the zing to this drink. Too much zing will not be enjoyed by most children.
   
   
    
5. Stir the cinnamon into the mixture thoroughly. You don’t want to have clumps of cinnamon in your mixture. Spread it into all the areas of the bowl while stirring.
6. Add in 1 teaspoon of cloves if your family likes cloves. We actually only added a small dash of cloves. 
7. Stir in the cloves thoroughly too.
8. Add in the jar of orange flavored drink or Tang.
9. Stir until the orange flavored drink is totally integrated into the mixture.
10. Pour the mixture into an airtight container to keep it fresh.

JDaniel decided to try the Russian tea mixture out before we put it in the airtight container.

Now that we know how to make Russian tea I think we will make it often.  It is really delicious and is super easy to make.

I cook with Pompeian Extra Virgin Olive Oil almost nightly. It adds great flavor to meats I am preparing as well as to vegetables. We have cut butter and margarine out of our diet at my husband suggestion. Olive oil has been a wonderful replacement. We love its taste and its a healthier choice.

 

JDaniel loves to stir the batter and add the eggs. He has gotten pretty good at opening the eggs. Supervision is still needed, but he does keep all of the small egg shell pieces out of the mix.

 

Although I have heard that cakes made from scratch are the best tasting cakes ever, we make our cakes using a mix. My mom was a mix cake maker and I guess I am just carrying on the family tradition. They only require a few ingredients in their cake recipes and focus on the mixing. Baking with kids is more about the creating and mixing then the hunting and gathering ingredients at this point.

My son could mix until the cows came home. He just seems to like stirring.  Once everything is thoroughly blended, but not over blended I pour the mixture into prepared (buttered and floured) cake pan.

Once the cake is in the oven, JDaniel gets to use a spoon to scrape the bowl. He is a super thorough scraper.

 

When it is time for the cake to come out of the oven, I say a little prayer that the entire cake will come out of the pan. Bits of cake have been known to stick to the pan in places I may have missed when preparing the pan for a cake recipe.

 

It is only when I have turned the pan over on a plate that we find out if God has sent a yes or no in answer to my prayer. This time we got a “yes”, but if it has been a “no” I would have put the bit of cake in place and dabbed those areas with extra frosting to cover them up.

 

The frosting or glaze was created by melting a few scoops of canned blue icing in the microwave. ( I found canned icing at Aldi.) The mostly drippy frosting was dripped over the cake. I didn’t microwave it long enough to make it extra drippy this time. I wasn’t a thicker drip for this cake.

Once the frosting was on, JDaniel and I put a star and dot-shaped sprinkles on the cake.  We thought is looked very pretty.

Our patriotic cake did well at the silent auction. The lady who purchased it ended up having other people at the auction want to try it. She ended up selling slices from the cake for a dollar. Then she turned the additional money into the auction.

Baking with Kids is fun! Creating a patriotic cake was fun! Making money for missions was fun too!

Other Cake Recipes

Snack for Kids- Kings Cake

Golden Robot Cake