Easter Baking

As we are enjoying the lovely beaches of Cornwall, the lovely Kate from Family Fever has kindly written up some Easter recipes for us to enjoy....

With Easter almost upon us and a lot of children now being on school holidays, baking is a great way to keep the kids occupied and create some delicious treats too.

 Here are 2 of my favourite Easter baking recipes – quick, easy and really tasty.

Easter biscuits

Ingredients:

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175g butter

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75g caster sugar

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275g plain flour

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Icing pens/sprinkles to decorate

Method:

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Cut the butter into small pieces, then add the flour and sugar

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Rub the butter between your fingers to make tiny crumbs

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Squeeze everything together to make a dough

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Knead lightly, then place between 2 sheets of baking powder and roll out thinly

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Peel off the top piece of paper and cut out shapes – maybe Easter eggs?

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Place on a baking tray, and bake for 10 minutes at 180 degrees.

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Once cooled – decorate in any way you like!

Easter nest cakes

Ingredients:

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300g chocolate

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Tablespoon golden syrup or honey

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4 large shredded wheat

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Mini eggs

Method:

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Break the chocolate into pieces and melt

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Add the honey or syrup and stir

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Crumble the shredded wheat into the mixture and stir well

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Spoon into cake cases and decorate with mini eggs. You can eat them straight away or pop them in the fridge to set!

Thanks Kate! 

Think Pink - Mini Strawberry Cupcakes

Tomorrow my daughter's nursery is holding a Think Pink day to raise money as part of  Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As well as inviting all children to dress in pink for the day they are holding a Pink themed bake sale.

Making a mess...

Of course we wanted to do our bit, so tonight after work we rolled up our sleeves and had some messy fun in the kitchen making some cakes. Now I have to tell you my little girl was rather excited; not only does she get to wear her pretty pink ballet clothes for nursery tomorrow ( I predict a lot of pirouettes!) but she also got to sprinkle icing sugar all over the kitchen floor today! (As that is of course the best way to make strawberry icing!)

We had a lovely time baking, and I realised that it had been a while since we had made cakes together. I always worry about the mess and the squabbles over whose turn it is to stir the mixture or lick the bowl but this evening showed me that my two little monsters can actually work really well together, they were really sweet taking turns and made a great team.

Educational...

It was a learning experience too as they counted out the mini marshmallows and Ben encouraged Elizabeth with her counting, helping her to get up to 15! This was the first time I had seen her accurately count that high and it was heart warming to watch her big brother helping her.

I think the part they enjoyed the most was the icing. We made a makeshift piping bag by chopping a corner of a ziplock sandwich bag and we all made an attempt at decorating the cakes, I won't tell you which ones I did...

So how did we make them?

We used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe I found on the BBC food website, but adapted it to add some strawberry food flavouring in place of vanilla essence so they tasted pink!

After baking the cupcakes and letting them cool we made some buttercream icing using softened butter, icing sugar and the tiniest drop of red food colouring and a drop of strawberry flavouring, I'm not sure if the colour turned out as pink as I had intended, but after posting a picture on facebook I was told it looked like angel delight so it can't be that bad!

The children had one each after dinner as a reward for all their hard work and the rest have been packed away for the bake sale tomorrow. I hope they help to raise some money...

Red Nose Day Cookies

Red Nose Day 2013 is approaching and so are all the fundraising events! Both my children's school and nursery are having charity bake sales this year and to encourage a bit of friendly competition they will be turning it into a bake-off and having prizes for the best, so I thought I'd better get practicing!

As soon as Ben and Elizabeth saw that I was getting ready to bake they wanted to help so I decided on a very quick and simple chocolate chip cookie recipe that's great for the kids to join in...

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• What you will need...
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• 200 g butter (at room temperature)
• 100 g caster sugar
• 250 g plain flour
• A handful of chocolate chips (optional)

   What to do...

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 3. 

Cream the butter in a large bowl and add in the suger until the mixture is pale in colour and a fluffy texture

Sift in the flour , throw in the chocolate chips and stir the mixture together to a firm dough. 

Spoon the mixture into  medium sized balls on to a pre-greased baking tray and flatten.

Bake for 15 minutes and then allow to cool on a wire rack ready for decorating!

To decorate the cookies we raided the cupboard and found:

Some White ready to roll icing

Red food colouring

Cadbury's Giant chocolate buttons

A tub of glacé cherries

and a tube of writing icing

And with Ben and Elizabeth's creative ideas here's what we came up with... 

Our very own Red Nose Day Monster Cookies!

These were really easy to make from scratch and quick and simple to decorate too, as well as being great for a tight budget as we just used what we had in the cupboard, ideal if you are roped in to doing quite a bit of baking for Red Nose Day!

We were challenged to create a fun cookie design for Red Nose Day by Sainsbury's Bank Family Blogger Network in association with the money matters blog and will be sent a £10 voucher to cover the cost of our ingredients.

Happy Pancake Day! Heart Shaped Pancakes...

As both Shrove Tuesday (aka pancake day) and valentines day fell in the same week this year we decided to make some heart shaped pancakes to celebrate!

Of course you can enjoy pancakes with your choice of topping, whether that be simple lemon and sugar, (Daddy's topping de jour) tasty blueberries (my favourite!) or something more indulgent....

Ben and Elizabeth went for chopped plum, whipped cream and sprinkles!! What else?

I'm sure you know what you need to make pancake batter, but just in case...

For around 8 heart shaped pancakes you will need...

1 large egg 

½ pint milk

4oz plain flour

1 tbsp melted butter

And to create your yummy Valentines / Shrove Tuesday treats....

Sift the flour into a large bowl (this a fun and easy bit for children to help with, although they *may* end up getting covered in flour!) 

Make a well in the centre and crack the egg into it.

Pour in some of the milk and start whisking!

Continue to whisk to a thin, cream like consistency, while adding in the rest of the milk and the melted butter

Cover and rest in the fridge for around thirty minutes before the really fun part begins!!

How to cook your pancakes...

I hate burnt pancakes so find the best way to avoid burning them is to make them really thin...

After wiping a little oil onto a frying pan and heating, pour in a thin layer of batter, swirling around so it covers the base of the pan, then pour out any excess batter.

Place pan back on heat for around a minute and then it's time to show off your FLIPPING SKILLS!!

Heat the other side for around a minute, then pop on to a plate and repeat 7 times.

Use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut your pancakes down to size, add on the toppings of your choice, and ENJOY!

Happy Valentines / Shrove Tuesday!!

Why not click on the badges below to find more yummy recipes? 

#cookitblogit

Gingerbread cookies for Teacher...

I always struggle at the end of term or Christmas with what to buy for Ben's teachers and Elizabeth's nursery staff. With four nursery staff in E's room at nursery and other staff that she sees daily too as well as a Teacher Two teaching assistants, a SENCO and after school club staff for Ben the costs of even token gifts mount up. So this year we decided to make something instead. Not only is this a way of saving money, it also means that the gift is more personal and we get to have do a fun activity too!

So on Tuesday after school we got out the children's baking set we were kindly sent from Aldi along with some Christmas themed cookie cutters and got to making some gingerbread cookies. We used this simple recipe from the BBC website:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gingerbread_men_99096

It was really easy to make and both Ben and Elizabeth enjoyed helping. The great thing about gingerbread dough is it's really forgiving so great for children to 'play' with.

So we needed....

• 350g plain flour 
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 125g butter
• 175g light soft brown sugar
• 1 free-range egg
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
  
  
  (we actually doubled this recipe as we needed quite a lot!)
  
  
  The Preparation was nice and simple, we started off by sifting together the flour, bicarb of soda and cinnamon before pouring into the food processor. We then added the butter and continued until the mixture was the consistency of breadcrumbs. Then stirred in the sugar (Elizabeth was in charge of stirring!)
  While we were doing this I had helped Ben crack the eggs in another bowl and added the golden syrup, which he was beating together. We added this to the processor and continued until the mixture became doughy. Mummy then kneaded the dough and we then wrapped it in some clingfilm and popped in the fridge for a short time, while we had a tidy up... (How had we made so much mess already?!)
  After 1 minutes I turned the oven to 180c (30F / Gas mark 4) and got the baking trays ready.
  
  
  Now for the fun bit!! We rolled out the dough to around 1cm thick and cut out lots of fun shapes from stars to gingerbread men and Christmas Trees! 
  
  
  After baking for 15 minutes, we let them cool for another 15 (while the next batch went in ) and started decorating! We had writing, icing mini dazzles and colourful sugar stars, Ben may have got a little excited with these!
  
  
  So we had great fun decorating and now it was time for the little ones to get sorted for bathtime with Daddy while I divided up the cookies into four boxes (these were cupcake boxes I had bought a while ago for 50p a pack!)
  
  
  We sent a box of a dozen cookies in to school, after school club and nursery and  took the left overs to work to give to my colleagues as an alternative to Christmas cards!
  
  
  

  

  
  
  Boxes of Festive Gingerbread cookies - A great budget gift that shows a lot of thought and is really fun to prepare!
  
  
  Ben wants to know when we are baking them again!