Tag: kids

Oat florentine and how to adapt it

I based this nuts and oat florentine on oats and on a variety of nuts. There is lots of space for accommodation around your taste.

Florentine cereal bar

Those tips were posted in a post I placed on this blog and you may not have seen them. Consider them, they are convenient. Now feel free to add other ingredients than oats to your base, for example you can add silvered almonds or corn flakes.

Tip 1 – the “glue” of your oat florentine

In the end, I realised it doesn’t matter too much what you want in it, it is important to make sure you have a good “glue”.  I looked at a number of recipes for that binding mix and opted for my own made with simple ingredients (butter, honey and brown sugar), so no glucose syrup or other fancy items.

Tip 2 – you need salt in your florentine

One thing I did wrong was having a little too much salt. So put salt but go slowly, once added you can’t remove it

Tip 3 – solid ingredients: let yourself go! There are no limitations there. You need to think of the flavours you are combining together, this is crucial but not too hard. if not sure, stick to a few nuts, seeds or dry fruits in addition to the oats.

Mine was a little extravagant as I went through the pantry nuts jars: brazil nuts (cut), shredded coconut, pepitas, walnuts, roasted hazelnuts, macadamia pieces. And some dry cranberries.

Now for he new tips:

Tip 4 – bake your florentine until nice and brown, do not hesitate to go to a nice coloured brown as it means the florentine will be more solid. The caramel is what binds the ingredients together. If it is too light, it will not hold.

Tip 5 – the slice shape is so much easier to handle, but the florentine round shape is pretty.  My round shapes are enormous, too big really but fun!

Ingredients:
  • 250 g of rolled oats
  • 175 g of brazil nuts, cut in pieces
  • 50 g of shredded coconut
  • 100 g of pepitas
  • 100 g of walnuts broken
  • 150 g of roasted hazelnuts, cut in pieces (quarter size roughly)
  • 100 g of macadamia, also cut in pieces
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • Wet mix:
    • 100 g of melted butter
    • 120 g of honey (you may need to heat up the honey if it is solidified)
    • 150 g of brown sugar (or up to 200g if you like them quite sweet)
  • 180 g of dark cooking chocolate gently melted for the top
Method:
  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.  Line a baking tray or slice tray with baking paper.
  2. Prepare the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them.  Prepare the wet ingredients in another bowl.
  3. Mix dry and wet ingredients.
  4. if using a slice tin, press the mix to a thickness of 1.5 cm to 2 cm. If doing florentines, use a tablespoon of mix minimum and press down to a 1.5cm thick disc.  The width will depend on the amount of mix.
  5. Bake in the middle of your oven for 1/2h to 40 minutes until nicely brown (the time will depend on your oven)
    Florentine cereal bar
  6. Cool down before covering with melted chocolate. If doing a slice, cut when the chocolate has almost hardened.

Florentine cereal bar

 

The giant choc chip cookie

The recipe for the giant choc chip cookie kept coming back on a Facebook cooking group. So I gave it a go. The recipe is from a French blogger Claire au Matcha.

Of course, this is very successful with children! Imagine, a giant cookie! I must say the first time I baked it I was quite excited also.

cookie geant

chip choc cookie cake

Ingredients:

For the giant choc chip cookie you will need a cake tin 20 cm wide, buttered and floured.

  • 180 g of plain flour
  • 1 tsp of baking powder
  • 180 g of brown sugar
  • 120 g of soft butter (must be soft, not melted).  Apparently, you could also use margarine according to the initial author.
  • 1 pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
  • 1 egg
  • 80 g of dark chocolate chopped in 1/2 cm pieces
  • For the top, 100 g of milk chocolate chopped into pieces (you can use dark chocolate if you prefer)

Note: I find the recipe a bit too sweet as such, bring the sugar down to 160 g or use dark chocolate which is not as sweet

Method
  1. Butter and flour the baking tin
  2. Preheat the oven to 180°C
  3. Cream together the soft butter and brown sugar, add the egg and mix well
  4. Add together the flour, salt, baking powder and 80 g of chocolate. Mix only until combined. The dough is rather compact, don’t worry.
  5. Transfer the dough into the tin and spread. Place the 100 g of chocolate over the top and gently push down a bit.
  6. Bake for 25 min or until golden brown (like a cookie).
  7. Turn over on a cooling rack, then on a dish.

Roasted almond and chocolate slice

This roasted almond and chocolate slice is very easy to make and quick. The difference from the more frequent almond cake base is the amazing aroma that comes from having toasted carefully the almond meal!

You will need a 20 x 20 cm slice tin or brownie tin for this slice.

Ingredients:
  • 180 g of caster sugar
  • 4 large eggs (that means from a box of 12 eggs weighting 700 g min)
  • 200 g of  almond meal
  • A few drops of good vanilla extract
  • 100 g of melted butter (I use salted butter, the choice is yours)
  • Chocolate top: 150 g of dark chocolate and 70 g of butter
Method:
  1. Heat up the oven to 170°C.
  2. Place the almond meal in a large thick based frypan on medium to high heat (no need for anything else!).  While constantly moving the almond meal around slowly with a wooden spoon or wooden spatula, allow it to toast to a nice golden brown. Remove from the heat when you reach the colour and immediately transfer to a bowl (else the almond meal will further darken). Careful, this is hot.
  3. In a food mixer with the whisk (or by hand with a wide whisk!), whisk together sugar and eggs until light and fluffy like a mousse.
  4. Add the vanilla extract.
  5. Slow down the speed of the mixer if using one. Add the melted butter. Then add the roasted almond meal once it has cooled down.
  6. Line the tray with baking paper (use a bit of butter to help it stick well on the sides). Pour the bottom mix into the slice tin.
  7. Bake until light brown (you can insert a skewer to check or simply press the top of the base with the tip of your fingers, it will slightly spring back). Remove from the oven. Leave in the tray.
  8. Melt the chocolate and  70 g of butter. Once melted, mix until smooth, then pour over the base and use a spatula to spread across the base.
  9. Leave to cool until set. If you are short of time, place the tray in the freezer for 20 minutes.
  10. Cut into slices.  The slices keep well for a few days in an air-tight container. Do not refrigerate.

barre amande et chocolat

Shortbread cookies

Shortbread cookies use the sweet short crust pastry as a base.  After it is just a matter of having a few cookie cutters at home.  Children can decorate them with coloured sugar balls, sultanas, nuts or fondant.

Ingredients:
  • 250 g plain flour
  • 125 g softened butter
  • 125 g white sugar
  • 1 egg
Method:
  1. In a large bowl, mix all ingredient together and form a ball.  Over a few movements, knead it on the kitchen bench to ensure cohesion (20 seconds max). Rest for 15-20 minutes.
  2. Dust the kitchen bench with flour to prevent sticking. Place the dough on the kitchen bench.  Dust the top similarly. Roll with the rolling-pin to 6 to 8 mm thick. Ensure the bottom is not stuck by lifting the pastry gently. Add more flour underneath of necessary.
  3. Using cookie cutters make the shapes and transfer them onto a baking sheet covered with baking paper.
  4. If the children want to decorate, use sultanas or pieces of nuts or sugar balls. Smarties work well too.
  5. Bake 10-15 minutes on 160 degrees Celsius until light blonde. Remove from the oven and slide the base on a cooling rack using the baking paper.  Allow to cool.

Black and white checkers cookies

This black and white cookies recipe is taken from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Book.  It is a recipe my eight year old daughter decided to do on her own.  As the recipe provides measurement in both the imperial american systems and universal metric system, there was a little confusion for her upfront on the different values.  Once that was sorted out, she ended up doing the cookies pretty much on her own (I was downstairs working).  With or without help from adults, this recipe is a great one to teach children some basic aspects of baking: making a shortcrust, measuring, diving, measuring, using egg yolk as a “glue”.

Makes about 40 cookies. Below is the recipe taken from Williams and Somona. The tips are my addition.

This type of cookie is made by forming dough into a log or rectangular block and chilling it thoroughly. You can also use different types of dough together (vanilla and chocolate, peanut butter and chocolate) to make patterned cookies. Cookies are then sliced off the log or block and baked. When slicing the dough, give the log or block a quarter turn after every half dozen or so slices to keep the cookies perfectly square or round.

black and white

Ingredients:
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour (315 g)
  • 1/2 cup sugar (125 g)
  • Pinch of salt –  Tip: remove if using salted butter
  • 250 g cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
  • 1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 tbs unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder

Tip: for the butter, you can use soft butter or half melted butter.  When you rest the dough the first time, either leve it longer or use the freezer. 

Method:

Tip: I am not using a food processor here as in the original recipe. I find that best learning is achieved by doing by hand and also the mixing is not really hard, so does not warrant the use of a food processor.

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Then, add the butter, vanilla  and egg yolks until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs and eventually holds together. Divide the dough in half. Transfer one-half to a lightly floured work surface and knead in the cocoa until incorporated. If the dough is very soft, wrap in cell-wrap and place in the fridge for 15 minutes.
  2. Lightly dust the work surface and a rolling pin with flour. Roll out each dough half into a 8 by 21 centimetre about one centimetre thick.  Trim the edges to even out.

    Tip: instead of trimming the edges, you can use a dough scrapper to push and distribute the dough in a rectangle.     
  3. Place each rectangle on a large baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until well chilled, about 30 minutes (Tip: or 10 minutes if using the freezer). Meanwhile, in a small bowl, beat the whole egg until blended. Set aside.
  4. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Using a sharp knife, cut each rectangle into 4 strips about 2 cm wide (you should have 4 strips of each color). Arrange 2 chocolate strips and 2 plain strips in a checkerboard pattern, brushing the beaten egg between the strips and gently pressing them together. Repeat with the remaining dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and use a knife to square off the edges of each block. Refrigerate until well chilled, about 30 minutes or 10 minutes if using the freezer.
  5. Preheat an oven to 180°C. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line them with parchment paper. Remove the blocks from the refrigerator, unwrap and cut each crosswise into slices 6-8 mm thick. Place them 4 cm apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies feel firm when lightly pressed, about 15 minutes. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then use a spatula to transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.

 

Sunday night diner

Sunday night diner is the wrap up of the weekend and the last step before the start of the new week. It has this homy comfortable feeling. Yes, but…

We, or rather my daughters started a silk rope class on Sunday afternoon.  They love it! I find it great too. By the time we come home it is often after 6 pm , sometimes after 7 pm. So, not willing to cook much at this stage of the day, I devise a quick meal.  One that came back a few times recently is a bean and sausages bake.  Dessert tonight – yes, there is always dessert – was a flan patissier.

The bean and sausage bake

You can rarely do easier and it require strictly no cooking skills.  All you need are cans of beans, tomato sauce and sausages! Pretty simple! Still need the recipe? Click HERE.

sunday evening bake

A flan patissier for dessert

Flans patissiers need to be made in advance preferably as they taste better warm or cold.  I made mine this morning before heading across Scotland Island through bushland on gorgeous little tracks.  Flan patissier are a typical French dessert, it is like a (homemade) baked custard.  Quite nice.

The recipe is HERE.

flan

 

 

 

No more porridge wastes!

This is it, no more porridge wastes! What do you do with left over porridge? Generally there aren’t any left over when there is porridge.  However, I must say,  quite recently my daughters have doubled up on breakfast requirements and I came home twice last week with a saucepan and left over porridge in it.  There is no such thing as serving porridge twice, eurrhh.

So, last night , while some left overs were heating up, I scooped the porridge, added a little this and a little that and Voila!

Moist (almost) gluten free porridge Cookies

No need to waste your leftover porridge, make these (almost) gluten-free cookies with your leftover porridge!

If you are wondering, which cereal I used, the recipe uses rice flour.

Recipe HERE.

GF porridge cookies GF porridge cookies GF porridge cookies

 

Note for GF people: Are oats gluten free?

It is a little complicated here. Oats are a different cereal to wheat. Oats do not contain any gluten.  They do contain, however a protein called avenin which can induce an immune reaction in one out of five coeliac persons.

Added to that is the fact that oats can be “contaminated” at the farm by equipment also processing (harvesting, storing or transporting) wheat.

As a result in Australia, oat products cannot be called gluten-free.

If you want more info, you may want to read Coeliac Australia ‘s position statement.

And look what just came out of the oven! I can still hear the crust cracking!

I don’t mean to be out of consideration to people who are unfortunately affected by coeliac conditions.  For those who read my blog for the first time, I am not coeliac and I have been making our bread for 2 1/2 years.  Today I increased the water ratio in the sourdough recipe, let it rise in the fridge when wandering around with the children all day and shaped and bakes these baguettes tonight.  I am very happy with the result!

high water content sourdough

Gluten Free Porridge Cookies

I made these gluten free porridge cookies (and the recipe) one day as I had enough of seeing left over porridge go to the compost bin.

Now, if you are coeliac, you may need to be careful, this recipe contains oats, which has a protein that can trigger an immune reaction (but not always).

GF porridge cookies

Ingredients:
  • 1 egg
  • 230 g of porridge with sultanas.  If you need to cook the porridge, use 1 volume of oats for 2 volumes or water or a mix of water and milk (I prefer a mix).
  • 100 g of white sugar
  • 100 g of butter
  • 1 tsp of raising powder
  • 230 g of brown rice flour
Method:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
  2. Melt the butter and mix it with the leftover porridge to loosen a bit the mass.
  3. Add the sugar and the egg.  Mix well.
  4. Then mix in the rice flour and raising powder.
  5. Place little mounts, about the size of a tablespoon on a lined baking sheet.  Bake until light brown.
  6. Cool down on a wire rack.

Note: the dough is quite wet and sticky but not runny, it keeps its form when spooned on the tray. If your porridge is quite runny, you will need to increase the flour a little.

GF porridge cookies GF porridge cookies

Pop Cakes!

Making and eating pop cakes was an amazing experience for the children.  Not only did they get to make the pop cakes and it tasted great, they also got to see them grow or “pop up” in the oven. They found that very exciting! And then they rushed to eat them!

Pop cake moulds are silicone moulds with bite size prints, the mould have a bottom part and a top part.  My mould upper part is transparent, this is how they saw them rise.

I used for the base recipe a very simple cake recipe called a “quatre quarts” which you can translate as “four quarters”.   The recipe has the same weight of eggs, flour, sugar and butter.  To ensure they little shape filled up the whole space I did increase the quantity of baking powder a bit.

Once the pop cakes are ready, we dipped them in melted some white chocolate and shredded coconut (and 100&1000s).

 

Ingredients:
  • 3 eggs
  • flour: the same weight as the eggs
  • caster sugar: the same weight as the eggs
  • butter: the same weight as the eggs
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 100 g white chocolate
  • shredded coconut
  • Toothpicks
Method:
  1. First weigt your eggs, this will be your reference for the flour, butter and sugar.
  2. Preheat oven to 180°C.
  3. Beat the sugar and eggs together with a whisk (or using an electric mixer) until pale and creamy.
  4. Then melt the butter and add it once cooled to the mix.
  5. Add the flour and raising powder and mix, being careful not to do lumps (best to swap the whisk for a wooden spoon and start mixing from the centre out expanding the size of the circle as you go).
  6. Spoon the mixture in each bottom print to the top.Place the lid and bake until ready about 15 minutesTip: the mould print with the holes is the top one (it allows for the steam to escape)
  7. Remove from the prints and allow to cool down on a cooling rack.
  8. Melt the white chocolate and place some shredded coconut in a bowl.
  9. Using a toothpick, pick a little cake ball, dip in the white chocolate then in the coconut. Enjoy!

Tip: if you have left over cake mix, make a couple of muffins with it! Perfect for the lunch box! 

 

 

 

It ended up with chocolate

It ended up with chocolate

I can’t remember how it all started.  I think I was browsing through some cookbooks .  As it happens (a lot) I got interrupted after a few minutes and left the books on the coffee table.  Fast forward a few hours, I can’t remember, my 8 y.o ., like a curious little possum, goes through the books and starts selecting pages. I am not even aware of that at the time.  In the end, we got these chocolate crackle tops for lunch boxes and a beautiful chocolate cake for dessert. Yes, you guessed right, those cookbooks I was browsing were all chocolates books, this is how it ended up with chocolate!

Chocolate crackle tops

These chocolate crackle tops are quite interesting.  By the way, the recipe is HERE.   It is best not to use a strong chocolate (50% or so is fine) and to add, as per the recipe, a good cocoa. And yes, please make me a favour, use a good cocoa and even preferably a dutch cocoa! But if like me you only have 70% cocoa chocolate handy and couverture chocolate on top of that (that was for the first batch- we did two batches over the week), you need to adapt a little the recipe.  I would recommend sticking to compound chocolate (i.e. your supermarket cooking chocolate) for this one.

chocolatebiscuits

We had a good time doing those, I think Ambrine has now mastered the centrifugal icing sugar coating force! Instead of pushing the ball in the icing sugar, we used a light plastic bowl with a handle which she could spin rapidly. It is a lot of fun to have several balls racing on the edges of the bowl (and not flying everywhere!).

Coating in icing sugar , ready, steady, roll!

And the chocolate cake?

mmmmm.  I need to do it again! Just for the photo, of course! It is a recipe from Valli Little called the Yin Yang Chocolate cake. Coming soon…

Chocolate crackle tops

These chocolate crackle tops are easy chocolate biscuits to make. They suit all ages, can be used for parties, lunch boxes, morning or afternoon tea or with a simple dessert like yoghurt or stewed apples.  This is a recipe perfect for involving the children: mixing, adding ingredients including breaking the eggs, measuring ingredients, forming balls, coating the balls,…

I tried the original version and a version where I removed the cocoa because I was using a strong chocolate and did not see necessary to add the cocoa. Below is the original version and how to apply the variation.

Round 2, icing sugar finely sieved

Makes 35-40

Ingredients
  • 200 g dark cooking chocolate
  • 90 g of butter
  • 115 g of caster sugar
  • 5 ml of vanilla essence
  • 200 g of plain flour
  • ½ tsp of baking powder
  • Pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
  • 25 g cocoa powder
  • 100 – 150 g of icing sugar for coating (see recipe)Tip:  Using or not cocoa powder. if you use a chocolate with a high level of cocoa, adding the cocoa will make the biscuits too strong in chocolate.  Either use a 50 % cocoa cooking chocolate and the cocoa or if using a 70% chocolate, do not add the cocoa and add one tablespoon of flour (or the dough will be too wet).
Method

 

  1. Melt chocolate and butter until smooth
  2. Add eggs one at the time, mixing in between each egg
  3. Add sugar
  4. Stir in vanilla essence
  5. Add in at once the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
  6. Your dough would be quite soft. Place a plastic film on top and place in the fridge for at least an hour (or a day!).  If you have used couverture chocolate, you dough would be fine to use straight away (couverture chocolate crystallise quite quick when cooling down).
  7.  Once the dough is hard enough, remove from the fridge.  Heat up the oven to 180 deg C. Use an ice-cream spoon or any strong spoon to form walnut size pieces. Roll in a ball. Place a couple tablespoons of icing sugar in a larger bowl and dust the balls all over.  Remove any excess by shaking it off.
  8. Place on a baking sheet covered with a baking paper or buttered. Insert in the oven for no more than 10 minutes (between 7 and 10 minutes). The top should be lightly firm. Transfer to a cooling rack.  You will need two rounds or two baking sheet to bake all the biscuits. Keep well for a week in a box.

Tip: Ensure the icing sugar is fully free of lumps for an even result.

Version 1- original (as you can see I had not sieved the icing sugar to full dust)
Version 2 – very thin coat of icing sugar , this batch omitted the cocoa

 

Walnut, Honey, Orange and Ricotta Muffins

Walnut, Honey, Orange and Ricotta Muffins, or maybe in short the “back to school” muffin. Why? Because the flavours match the season of the first month back at school. These muffins are great for lunch boxes.  They keep for a few days in an airtight container or you can freeze them.

This is one of my own recipes, fresh off the press by trying to marry the ice taste of ricotta with something that children will go for.  I made another recipe that day, equally nice, the raspberry and ricotta muffin (CLICK HERE).

This is an easy recipe.

Makes 15.

Ingredients:

  • 1 ½ cup of ricotta
  • 250 g of plain flour
  • 2 tsp of raising powder
  • 130 g of melted butter
  • 200g of sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 very large tbsp. of honey
  • Juices of 2 small oranges (1.5 if large ones)
  • 1 cup of sultanas
  • 2 cups of walnuts
Method:
  1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
  2. Mix the ricotta, sugar and eggs until the mix is completely smooth (no ricotta lumps left)
  3. Add the honey and orange juice.
  4. Add the flour, raising powder, sultanas together, mix well.  Then add the walnuts and mix.
  5. Using a large spoon, spoon mixture in muffin cases and bake until well golden.