C is for Christmases Past

This is my mum's recipe for Christmas Cake.  We will be making a version of this for our own cake this year as we won't be at my mum's for Christmas Day.  I believe it is good to carry on some traditions from the past in order to keep us connected with our families and ancestors.

Do you have family Christmas traditions that you are keeping this year?

D is for Dog Treats

My Bee loves animals.   It doesn't really matter what sort.  Yesterday she spent nearly an hour cuddling a bearded dragon (her cousin's pet) inside her jacket to warm it up.  Bee would dearly love a cat which will have to wait until we move to a larger place.  And the second thing she wants to do on arrival at her Aunty and Uncle's place is to feed the chooks, cows, lizards, birds and fish.

What's the first thing Bee wants to do at her Aunt's place I hear you ask.  Play with their Maltese cross puppy dog, Poppy.  Even though we have a pet dog (a Terrier cross called JJ) which she loves, Bee absolutely adores Poppy dog.  I can see the attraction.  Poppy is small, white, fluffy and cuddly.  Much to Bee's constant consternation though, Poppy is not a lap dog.  Our JJ is more of a lap dog but is a little too big at the moment for the girls' laps.  However,  even though Poppy doesn't like a lot of cuddles Bee still loves spending time with her.

Bee and Poppy

After our last visit to Poppy's house, Bee was upset during the car ride home.  When I asked her what was wrong, Bee replied "I miss Poppy".  So I suggested we make some special homemade dog treats to take to Poppy next time we visited. 

Bee cheered up with that suggestion and after some google research we found these recipes for Homemade Dog Treats over on My Baking Addiction. 

We decided on the Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats mainly because I had all the ingredients we needed.  It was a good choice too.  Poppy goes nuts for these treats.  Our dog JJ does too. Bee was happy to share them between the two dogs and we have since made another batch for them to share.

To get the full recipe for Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats head over to My Baking Addiction.  The only change I made was to use plain flour rather than whole wheat flour as that is what we had.  We made about 40 small treats using small cookie cutters.  Even though US and Australian measuring cups differ in size I used my regular measuring set and the end result was fine.  The oven temperature converts to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Bee mixing the flour, oats and cinnamon.

Bear mixing the pumpkin, eggs and peanut butter.

Mixing it all together. Yes that is pumpkin on your arm!

Kneading the dough a little.

Bee chose to use butterfly, dog and bone biscuit cutters.

Bear chose bat, snowman and cat biscuit cutters.

Ready to bake.

Fresh from the oven.

We store our dog treats in a container in the fridge and they last as long as they need to (ie. not very long as both Bee and Bear love feeding them to the dogs and the dogs love to help out!).

C is for Cake Stalls

Yesterday saw my first guest post for a well known Australian company published. I was (and still am) so excited.  The post features Bear and Bee helping to make Mini Strawberry Yoghurt Cupcakes for their Kindy's recent cake stall.  It is a great recipe and being mini in size it makes a lot of cupcakes for a small investment of time and ingredients.  Follow this link to see the guest post and recipe in full.

We also made some Chocolate Playdough and Peppermint Playdough to be sold at the Cake stall.  This recipe for Easy No-cook Playdough from Nurturestore is fantastic and one that we have used many times.  For Peppermint playdough, we substituted green food colouring for the red and added a few drops of peppermint flavouring essence.

The idea for Chocolate playdough came from The Imagination Tree.  It looks and smells divine and, even though we have made it before, it still manages to trick Bee into trying some.  It's definitely not tasty like the real thing though.

We would love some ideas on what to make for future cake stalls. What have you made for a cake stall that sold well?

W is for Weetbix Slice

Oooo Yum!

Do you ever have those moments when something happens and you are reminded of something you loved from the past and you didn't even realise you had forgotten all about it?  And then your family was like, Woah how come you have been hiding this from us?  We love it!  Well for me it has been the humble Weet-Bix Slice.

I was reading the March issue of one of my two favourite food magazines Super Food Ideas (my other favourite is Donna Hay) when I spotted a recipe for Weet-Bix slice.  We made the slice following the recipe and it turned out really well.

Now everyone is happy! (Well for the moment anyway).

Weet-Bix Slice

Makes 18 pieces

Original recipe: Super Food Ideas magazine, March 2014: News Life Media

Ingredients
For the slice
3 Weet-Bix, crushed (great step for toddlers to do in their highchairs)
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
3/4 cup brown sugar
160g butter, melted, cooled

For the icing
1 cup icing sugar mixture
1/4 cup cocoa powder
60g butter, melted
1 1/2 tablespoons boiling water

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius/160 degrees Celsius fan-forced.
2. Grease an 18cm x 28cm (top) slice pan. Line base and sides with baking paper, extending paper 2cm above edges of pan.

3. Combine Weet-Bix, flour, coconut and sugar in a bowl.

4. Add butter. Mix well to combine.

What?  I didn't try any yet. Honest!

5. Press mixture firmly over base of prepared pan.
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden and top of slice is just firm to touch. Cool in pan.
7. To make icing sift icing sugar and cocoa together in a large bowl.
8. Add butter. Stir to combine.
9. Gradually add boiling water, stirring, until mixture is a spreadable consistency.

 10. Working quickly, spread icing over the top of prepared base.

I can't wait that long mum.

11. Set aside for 30 minutes or until set.  Serve cut into pieces.

G is for Gingerbread Cookies

Bear and Bee love to visit the public library.  We try to go once a week and it's always fun to discover new books that are destined to become lasting favourites.  While Bear has certain characters and subject matter that she prefers, Bee loves to browse the display shelves to see what is available.  And I am always on the lookout for books that we might be able to get cooking ideas from.

Last week Bee and I were both happy to find 'Maisy Makes Gingerbread' by Lucy Cousins.  The book is written and illustrated in typical Maisy style with bright colours and one thing happening on each page.

Bee's favourite page of the book.

After reading about Maisy making gingerbread and sharing with her friends for afternoon tea, we decided to make some of our own gingerbread to have to afternoon tea.

Gingerbread Cookies
Adapted from a recipe in Fun Food by acp books
Makes about 20

Ingredients
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup golden syrup

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl, with an electric mixer, until pale and creamy.
3. Add egg yolk and mix well.
4. Sift flour, ginger and baking powder and add to bowl.
5. Heat syrup in a microwave for 20 seconds on high to make it runny.
6. Add syrup to bowl and and mix well to form a soft dough.
7. Tip dough onto a floured surface and knead gently.  Add a little more flour if the dough is too soft and sticky.
8. Roll dough out until 0.5cm thick approx.

9. Cut out shapes using floured cookie cutters.

10. Arrange on prepared baking trays and place in freezer for 5 minutes.  This will help stop the cookie puffing up too much.
11. Bake trays of cookies in oven for 10 minutes.

12. Cool on trays for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

These squeezy bottles are great for kids to use for icing.

13. When cookies have cooled, decorate with icing, sprinkles and small lollies.

For the icing, we beat 1 egg white with a whisk in a small bowl until frothy. Then we gradually added 1 1/2 cups of icing mixture, mixing well after each spoonful. Finally we stirred in a few drops of food colouring. 

C is for Cinderella's Tea Party

Princesses. Disney. Brothers Grimm. Cartoon or Fairy Tale. Traditional needing rescue or independent and saving the day. It doesn't matter what type of princess she is Bee and Bear love her. It is fair to say that my daughters love anything to do with princesses. Mind you they also love fairies, dinosaurs, barbie, bugs, cute animals, etc. etc. so they are probably no different to most other girls their age.  But they do especially love princesses.  Which is why I decided to surprise them with a Cinderella Tea Party.

Bee dressed as Princess Ariel.

Princess Ariel was invited and joined Princess Bear for the party.  First up we read the Cinderella story and talked about what food was mentioned.  From our version of the story we came up with breakfast (including the cups of tea), corn for the chickens and mice and a pumpkin for the carriage.

In honour of Cinderella and her carriage I made Pumpkin Cinnamon Doughnuts.  They were delicious and a nice change to plain Cinnamon Sugar doughnuts. Pink tea was served as the refreshment of course!

Normally I would get Bear and Bee to help me with these but today there were a surprise.  If you want your child to help they should be able to do steps 2 and 3 of making the doughnut batter and then step 9 to coat the doughnuts in the cinnamon sugar topping.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Doughnuts

Makes 10
Download printable recipe card here.

Ingredients
Doughnuts
1 1/2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Cinnamon Sugar Coating
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions
1. Preheat doughnut machine.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.
3. Whisk in the oil, pumpkin, milk and egg.  Mix until smooth.
4. Spoon into a piping bag.
5. Spray machine lightly with cooking oil spray.
6. Fill the bases of the doughnut rings by piping in half of the batter.
7. Cook for 6 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Meanwhile mix together the caster sugar and cinnamon on a large plate.
9. When doughnuts are cooked transfer to a plate and brush with melted butter. Gently coat with the cinnamon sugar topping.
10.  Repeat steps 5 to 9 with the remaining batter.

If you don't have a doughnut machine, these doughnuts can be baked in the oven.  Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius.  Grease a doughnut pan with melted butter. Pipe in the batter until two-thirds full and baked for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown.  Remove from the oven and add cinnamon sugar topping as per step 9 above.

Have you made any fairy tale inspired food lately?

C is for Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Muffins are a great lunchbox addition at any time of the year but as the weather starts to cool I like my muffins to do double duty.  A warm muffin with vanilla ice cream or custard makes the perfect dessert. And if, like me, you wrap the muffins in plastic wrap and store them in the freezer, its a quick and easy dessert too.

These Chocolate Raspberry Muffins taste a little like a cherry ripe chocolate bar but are a healthier option (depending on what you serve them with of course).

The original recipe is from the Australian Institute of Sports website.  To make life easier I have made a printable card for this recipe which you can download here.

Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Recipe credit: Australian Insitute of Sport
Makes 12

Ingredients
2½ cups self-raising flour
¼ cup baking cocoa
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¾ cup caster sugar
½ cup dark chocolate chips
1 tablespoon margarine, melted
1 cup skim milk
1 egg
300 g frozen raspberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with paper muffin cases. Putting the paper cases into the tray is a great step for even really young children to help with. We actually made some regular sized muffins and some mini muffins which are a great size for Bear and Bee's lunchboxes. 

3. Sift flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. 
4. Stir in sugar and choc bits and make a well in the centre.

5. In a small bowl, use a fork to whisk together margarine, milk and egg, then add to flour mixture.
6. Stir gently until mixture is just combined (do not over-beat).

7. Gently fold raspberries through mixture. We actually crushed our raspberries up while frozen by placing them in a ziplock bag and gently hitting them with a rolling pin.  This gave us tasty little raspberry peices all through the muffin mix rather than lumps of whole raspberries.

8. Spoon mixture into cases.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are well risen and spring back to the touch. Leave in pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

F is for Food Revolution Day Part 2

So far so good for this year's Food Revolution Day.  We have made Banana smoothies and Banana Bread today and both were delicious. Bee and I decided to make up our own recipe for Banana smoothies rather than use Jamie Oliver's version.  However we pretty much stuck to Jamie's recipe for Banana Bread.  All we changed was to leave out the nuts.

I hope all the other participants in this year's Food Revolution Day are having just as much success and fun as we have had. We will be joining in with other The Kids Cook Monday participants and making Rainbow Salad Wraps too.  Keep a watch for our blog post on how we go.

For our Banana Smoothies, we placed 1 banana, 1 tablespoon of honey, 200ml milk and 2 tablespoons of low fat strawberry yoghurt in a blender and blitzed until smooth.

Bee adding yoghurt for the smoothie.

Adding the honey for the smoothie.

Blitzing the smoothie ingredients.

Bee enjoying her smoothie.

For the Banana Bread, see Jamie's recipe here.

Bee mashing the banana.  Potato mashers work a treat for this.

Bee cracking the eggs. We are lucky to get home grown ones from a relative.

Mixing it all together.

Smoothing the top.

Fresh from the oven.

Delciousness.

#FRD2014