Volume I: Chocolate-Hazelnut Lunch Box Tarts

Welcome to the first installment of Anyone Can Cook: A Toddler Cooking Series. Seeking inspiration from Gusteou in Disney’s film, Ratatouille, my 4 year old toddler and I are attempting to make Disney-inspired recipes at home and share the experience with you. 

Our first recipe comes from The Unofficial Disney Parks Cookbook by Ashley Craft and is named “Chocolate-Hazelnut Lunch Box Tarts”. Within Disney’s Hollywood Studios, specifically in Toy Story Land, is a quick service restaurant called Woody’s Lunch Box. It’s here that you will typically be able to find a variety of Lunch Box Tarts. Currently, their menu features a Raspberry Lunch Box Tart as well as a special Halloween themed Pumpkin Lunch Box Tart. Both are priced at $4.79. 

Determined to make the Lunch Box Tart community proud, my son and I got to work.  Here is my first #Tot Tip: Review the recipe and ingredients prior to inviting your toddler to join you. Certain prep work might need to be done before you begin. Trust me, there is nothing worse than hyping your toddler up to begin baking, only to realize you forgot to thaw your frozen pastry dough for 45 minutes first.  

Once our pastry dough was thawed, I cut it into “evenly” shaped rectangles using a pizza cutter and placed them on a tray lined with parchment paper. Now was my toddler’s big time to shine. He absolutely loved scooping out the Nutella and placing it fairly close to the almost evenly shaped rectangles on the tray. Hoping the amount of Nutella the recipe called for was a suggestion, we forged ahead to the spreading phase. It’s here that I learned pastry dough is resistant to Nutella because of the flour (?). Realizing patience was a skill my toddler and I both apparently needed to work on, we kept trying. 

Now that we had more Nutella than pastry dough, it was time to place a plain rectangle on top of its counterpart with the spread and press the edges together to keep them closed while baking. I am proud to say, my toddler did really well with this task. We used our fingers first and a fork second to try and get really well-sealed edges. Knowing the monumental amount of Nutella waiting to flow out of these, we spent some extra time on this step. As soon as they went into the oven, my toddler lost interest and went to go play in the other room. Feeling fairly successful up until this point, I set a timer and worked on cleaning the kitchen while I waited. 

As the timer sounded, I braced myself for what I would find when I opened the oven door and simultaneously regretted not spending the time searching for ways to get Nutella out of an oven as I was convinced it would be everywhere. To my complete surprise, although the puff pastry lived up to its namesake, they otherwise looked to be a beautiful golden brown sort of Lunch Box Tart! 

My toddler called an audible and declared he didn’t want any toppings or icing on the tarts and that they were in fact complete. Reassuring myself the reason for this new plan was because he has an elevated palate and not that he doesn’t want to bake with me anymore today, I agreed the tarts were complete. 

The End Result:

There’s a reason why Woody packed these tarts in his Lunch Box, because they are delicious! I let them cool slightly but tried my first bite while the tart was still warm. The flaky pastry mixed with the chocolate-hazelnut was fantastic. Although simple, sometimes you can’t argue with a classic chocolate pastry treat. My toddler ultimately did not want to try to eat any himself, but he did say that he had a lot of fun baking with me and was already asking what else we could make together. 

I chose this recipe to begin my journey baking and cooking with my toddler because of its simplicity and because I already had most of the ingredients at home. I believe the smaller list of ingredients and limited number of steps were definite pros to making this recipe with a toddler. In addition, there was minimal prep work and more importantly, minimal cleaning up afterwards. My toddler was able to participate in the entire process from start to finish and had a lot of fun while doing so. I highly recommend trying this one out with your toddlers as well! 

This was the first of many toddler cooking adventures I hope to have with my son. Be sure to check back regularly for new posts in the Series!