Tag Archives: snack

Halloween tasting plate

Posted on October 30, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

Although Halloween has never been important to me, and apart from one Halloween top I bought for Nicholas last year which amazingly still fits him (having gone from a chubby baby to a slimmer toddler), I’ve had no urge to dress Nicholas up or celebrate in any way. I figure the day he asks for a costume will come very quickly so I plan on taking it easy till then!

But, as you’ve noticed, Halloween has been a great creative inspiration to me, at a time when I was feeling quite bored with cooking for the family. I’m sure you have those ups and downs too, times when you’re inspired to make new dishes and then those other times when you’d quite happily stay out of the kitchen for the unforseen future.

One of the blogs I love reading for food inspiration is Meet the Dubiens. Jill makes the cutest bento boxes for her kids and can turn what could be a boring sandwich into something I can imagine must bring enormous smiles to their faces. No matter what age, who wouldn’t smile opening a lunch box to see this?

I wanted to make Nicholas a fun and healthy lunch. There are some amazing food ideas for Halloween on the Internet, but a lot of them involve decorating sweet things with even more sugary things (not food I want Nicholas to be eating as part of his regular diet). It took me a while to decide what to create, but the effort was definitely worth it. As soon as Nicholas saw the plate, he started oohing and aahing. He looked at everything in detail, growling at the pancake ghost, laughing at the cheese bat and kissing the banana ghosts (obviously not as scary as pancake ghosts!) before deciding what to taste first (the sultanas).

HALLOWEEN TASTING PLATE

Ghost pancakes (sugar-free)

I used my sugar-free apple pikelet recipe, using half wholemeal and half plain self-raising flour. I poured the batter into a lightly oiled stainless steel cookie cutter, and added sultanas for eyes and a mouth just before flipping to cook the other side.

Ghost bananas

These came straight from Jill at Meet the Dubiens. Cut a banana in half and press in chocolate drops for eyes and a mouth.

Black grape spiders

An adaptation of the olive spiders I used to decorate my spider web soup, just cut two black grapes in half. Use a half for each body and slice the other halves into legs.

Bat sandwich

I used a bat-shaped cookie cutter for the bread and cheese, and an edible black ink pen to draw the bat faces (I need more practice!). I also used some small star cutters on the leftover cheese.

Bat droppings

Fun food doesn’t have to be complicated. Sultanas in a bat cupcake case are much more fun if you call them bat droppings!

Why not try creating a fun tasting plate for your little ones? I’d love to see your efforts. And your little ones’ smiles!

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Posted in lunch, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged Halloween, lunch, snack, tasting plate, toddler. Bookmark the permalink.

Scary finger biscuits

Posted on October 28, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

The countdown is on for Halloween, and one of my oldest and dearest friends, Kath, made these fabulously spooky fingers with her son. Are you brave enough to try them?

There are quite a few pins of severed finger biscuits floating around on Pinterest, but I loved that Kath’s version look like zombie fingers that have clawed their way out of the ground! The spooky effect is easily achieved by dying flaked almonds for the fingernails and dusting the cooked biscuits with some cocoa powder ‘dirt’. Kath also added some spots of green food colouring for a mouldy effect!

Kath used a simple plain biscuit recipe from Martha Stewart. The recipe makes a lot, but you can freeze the leftover dough for up to three months and make some different biscuits another time.

SCARY FINGERS

Prep time: 20 mins, plus 20 mins for dough to chill
Cook time: 15 mins
Makes about 30 fingers

2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Flaked almonds
Black food colouring (or red and blue food colouring mixed together)
Cocoa powder for dusting

Colour almonds by putting them in a bowl and covering with food colouring, leaving them to soak until they become black. Dry on paper towel.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

In a food processor, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, and then on a low setting, gradually add the flour mixture and beat until combined.

Take the dough out of the food processor and press it together. Divide it in two, wrap each piece in cling film (or place in a ziploc bag) and freeze until firm (about 20 mins).

Preheat oven to 160C and line oven trays with baking paper.

Take one piece of dough from the freezer and shape it into fingers by rolling pieces to about 8-10cm in length (if the dough is too hard, let it stand for 5-10 mins to soften a little).

Squeeze one end of each biscuit to form the finger tip and again near the centre to form the knuckle. Use the back of a knife to lightly score around the knuckles. Press a coloured almond flake into each finger tip to create the nail. Repeat with the other piece of dough or leave it frozen for another day.

Place the fingers on the oven trays and bake for 10-15 mins.

Let cool and lightly dust with cocoa powder.

Variations:

Use whole unblanched almonds for fingernails without colouring them, or whole blanched almonds painted with food colouring.
Dab red jam on the end of each biscuit for freshly severed fingers.
Colour the biscuit dough with food colouring to make monster fingers.

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Sweet potato jack-o-lantern pancakes

Posted on October 26, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

Their faces are quite mean, but Nicholas loves growling at them!

These jack-o-lantern pancakes are full of sweet potato goodness with chocolate drop features, however you could use raisins to make the faces and then they’d be completely sugar-free. Head over to Mindful Mum to see how you can make them.

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Posted in breakfast, family, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged finger food, Halloween, Mindful Mum, pancakes, recipe, snack, sugar-free, sweet potato, toddler. Bookmark the permalink.

Chewy oaty biscuits

Posted on October 22, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

So Nicholas’ first go at cooking went really well. He particularly enjoyed spooning the ingredients into the various bowls. I had laid out a number of different sized spoons and he tried all of them, preferring the smaller ones (it makes sense when his chubby hands are so small).

I found Michelle’s advice over at What’s Cooking With Kids really useful. She suggests using a large bowl with a non-skid bottom, putting the mixing bowl inside a larger bowl to avoid spills, and setting up everything ahead of time so your little one doesn’t get bored waiting for you to prepare. One of her readers also recommends using a funnel which I think would work really well. Nicholas definitely enjoyed using a jug, especially while we were waiting for the biscuits to cook.

It’s important to choose something that’s easy to cook. A recipe that involves mainly pouring ingredients into a bowl and mixing them is perfect. Biscuits or slices that have melted butter are great; you can melt the butter beforehand and let it cool so little hands are safe when mixing. Also try to make something that doesn’t take very long to cook so you can both sample your munchkin’s efforts as soon as possible.

These chewy oaty biscuits are a simple recipe you can find all over the place with the same basic ingredients. They’re simple, perfect for kids to make and easy to vary. I used this recipe from NetMums and added some raisins, but the possible variations are almost limitless.

The texture is similar to flapjacks (firm on the outside with a chewy centre), in fact you could press the mixture into a square tin and then cut into pieces rather than rolling it into biscuits.

We didn’t get any where near the 24 biscuits the original recipe says and our biscuits were small. Even with some mixture going on the floor and into a little mouth, it was closer to 18 small biscuits

CHEWY OATY BISCUITS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 10-15 mins
Makes about 18 small biscuits or 12 medium-sized biscuits
They keep well for several days in an airtight container

75g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g demerara sugar
75g porridge oats
25g raisins

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease or line an oven tray with baking paper.

Gently melt the butter and golden syrup either in the microwave or in a small saucepan. Leave to cool.

Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl.

Add the sugar, oats and raisins and stir together.

Pour in the cooled melted butter and golden syrup and mix until combined.

Roll the mixture into small balls and place well apart on the prepared tray. Press down with the back of an oiled spoon to make flatter biscuits or leave for more rounded biscuits.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Variations:

Use a dairy-free margarine instead of the butter to make dairy-free biscuits
Use honey instead of golden syrup
Add other dried fruit such as chopped dried apricot, dried apple or dried strawberries
Add chocolate chips
Drizzle with melted chocolate or dip half of each biscuit into melted chocolate
Add some spice such as cinnamon or ground ginger
Add flaked almonds
Add desiccated coconut

Have you tried cooking with your kids? What advice would you give to make it as stress free as possible?

1 Comment

Posted in cooking with toddlers, family, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged biscuit, cooking with kids, finger food, flapjacks, NetMums, oats, recipe, snack, toddler, vegetarian, What's Cooking with Kids. Bookmark the permalink.

Cornmeal muffins

Posted on October 15, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I was debating whether to call these cornbread muffins as the taste and texture is similar to cornbread, and then I thought perhaps spicy cornmeal or cornbread muffins. To avoid any confusion, as the recipe isn’t an authentic cornbread recipe nor are they very spicy, I’m going with the (perhaps boring but simple) cornmeal muffins.

If you don’t want to make muffins, you can pour the mixture into a square baking tin and then cut them into squares after they’re cooked. Or you could make a loaf and cut off slices.

The level of spice is very mild, so perfect for toddlers (the predominant flavour is cheese). But you can easily add more spice by increasing the cumin and coriander, and/or add some crushed dried chilli.

Eat them on their own as a snack or as an accompaniment to a main dish, they’re perfect for little and big fingers alike.

CORNMEAL MUFFINS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes 12 small muffins

140g fine cornmeal
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (about 75g)
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp vegetable oil
225ml Greek yogurt

Preheat the oven to 200C and grease your muffin tin with a little oil or cooking spray (or line your tin with paper cases to avoid washing the tin).

Mix the cornmeal, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cumin and coriander in a bowl. Add the grated cheese and mix well so the ingredients are combined evenly.

In another bowl or jug, mix the beaten egg, vegetable oil and yogurt together.

Mix the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients and stir quickly until just combined.

Pour into the prepared muffin tin and bake for 15 – 20mins until golden on top and cooked through when tested with a skewer.

Variations:

Add fresh chives or coriander to the batter
Add some crumbled cooked bacon to the batter

2 Comments

Posted in family, lunch, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged cheese, cornmeal, finger food, lunch, muffins, recipe, snack, toddler, vegetarian. Bookmark the permalink.

Wholemeal wheat thins

Posted on September 27, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

One of the food blogs I religiously read is Smitten Kitchen. I love Deb’s laid-back approach to family cooking and the wonderful creations that come out of her small New York kitchen. I particularly love her homemade versions of snacks you might secretly buy at the supermarket checkout.

Her whole wheat goldfish crackers have been on my list of recipes to try for a while, but when her homemade wheat thins popped into my inbox I was running to the kitchen immediately!

With a food processor you can make these mini crackers super fast (if you don’t have one, follow Deb’s instructions to mix the dough by hand). Most of your preparation time will be rolling and cutting. If you’re a bit short of time, only roll out half of the mixture and keep the rest of the dough in the fridge to make the next day (or even freeze the remaining dough). You don’t need to make the dotted pattern on each cracker, but it does look cute!

I adapted Deb’s recipe slightly. I replaced the sugar with honey. I know, I have this thing against sugar when making things for Nicholas. Actually there’s very little sugar in the original recipe, but I still prefer substituting something a bit more natural and less refined. Honey’s also sweeter so you can use less, and after using it for a while now, I actually prefer its richer more mellow flavour to the harsher stronger taste of refined sugar. Anyway, enough of my honey rant!

As Deb says, you can use white flour and the result will be a lighter texture. I also can’t wait to try these again adding some onion or garlic powder, or some dried herbs. You could also make them cheesy.

I cut my thins smaller, mainly for Nicholas’ tiny hands but also so I wouldn’t feel guilty if a couple of them just happened to find their way into my mouth 😉

WHOLEMEAL WHEAT THINS

Prep time: 15-20 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes about 130
Keep in an airtight container for a week
Freezable (both the cooked thins and the uncooked dough)

1 1/4 cups (155 grams) wholemeal plain flour
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
Additional salt for topping (optional)
1/4 tsp paprika
4 tbsp (55 grams) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/4 cup (60ml) cold water

Heat the oven to 200C and line an oven tray with baking paper.

Put the flour, honey, 1/2 tsp salt, paprika and butter into a food processor. Blend the mixture until it’s combined and the butter is evenly disbursed.

With the motor running, slowly pour in the cold water and blend until the mixture comes together into a ball.

Take the dough out of the processor and divide it in half. Roll out one half of the dough as thin as you can (rolling the dough out over a piece of cling film makes sure it doesn’t stick to your bench and be generous with the flour on your rolling pin). The thinner you can roll it, the crisper your thins will be.

Cut rectangles about 2.5cm by 2cm using a knife, a pastry wheel or even a pizza cutter. Place them close together on your prepared tray and use a skewer or toothpick to poke some dots into each one (I poked three dots from top to bottom on both sides and two dots in the middle). Sprinkle with extra salt, if using.

Bake for 7 – 10 mins until golden brown and crisp (keep a close eye on them as they cook quickly).

Variations:

add onion or garlic powder to the mixture
add some dried herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary, etc.) to the mixture
add some grated cheddar or parmesan to the mixture
use white plain flour for a lighter texture

Tip: if your thins start getting soft, pop them back into the oven to crisp up for a couple of minutes.

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Posted in family, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged family, finger food, recipe, Smitten Kitchen, snack, sugar-free, toddler, vegetarian, wheat thins, wholemeal. Bookmark the permalink.

Lemon meringue cupcakes

Posted on September 19, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

We’re in the middle of National Cupcake Week and I haven’t eaten nearly enough cupcakes!

When I was thinking about some different cupcakes to experiment with for this week, I kept thinking about the desserts I like and whether I could make a cupcake version of them. Lemon meringue pie was one of those at the top of my list. Doing some quick online research (I try not to do this very much when I’m experimenting to avoid being influenced too much rather than going with my own ideas), people were making lemon flavoured cupcakes with some kind of meringue on top, or spreading lemon curd on top of a cupcake. I was thinking something different.

My cupcakes have a surprise – a gooey centre of lemon curd under the fluffy meringue. In an ideal world (where I can spend as much time as I like experimenting in the kitchen while someone else does the day-to-day cooking) I would make my own lemon curd. But living in the real world, I used ready-made lemon curd from the supermarket.

My meringue topping is a fluffy airy meringue rather than a stiffer marshmallow texture as I prefer my cupcake toppings to melt in your mouth. I also like seeing other people with my food all around their mouths! And anyway, cupcake eating should be messy. Did you ever see Carrie Bradshaw in ‘Sex and the City’ eat a cupcake without getting the icing all over her fingers and sometimes also on her chin?!

The vanilla cupcakes are the same recipe I used to make my lamington cupcakes. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

I’ve used an Italian style meringue (using a sugar syrup rather than mixing sugar directly into the egg whites) because it holds its shape much more easily. I’ve erred on the side of being very generous for the amount of meringue topping. I would hate to think of anyone running out or a twelfth cupcake being left with a meagre amount, and you can always use any leftovers to bake mini meringues.

LEMON MERINGUE CUPCAKES

Prep time: 25-30 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes 12 cupcakes
Unfilled cupcakes without the topping can be frozen for up to a month

Vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd filling

125g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
125g butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
2 tbsp milk
150g lemon curd

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan).

Sift the flour and baking powder together.

Beat the butter and sugar with a handheld mixer, or in a food processor, until creamy and a paler colour.

At a slower speed, add the vanilla, eggs (one at a time) and milk.

Put the creamy mixture into a bowl and carefully fold in the flour mixture, being careful not to overmix it.

Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake cases (the mixture should fill the cases about two thirds full).

Bake for 12-15 mins until cooked through when tested with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.

Once cool, with a sharp knife cut a small circle in the centre of each cupcake. Use a teaspoon to take it out, keeping the extra piece of cake (no, you can’t eat it).

Dollop one teaspoon of lemon curd into each hollowed out cupcake. Cut off the bottom of the extra piece and place it back on top to close the cupcake up. (If your top no longer completely covers the hole, you can crumble the extra piece you cut off and lightly press the crumbs in.)

Meringue topping

3 egg whites, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
75ml water

In a small saucepan, dissolve the sugar and water over a low heat.

Whisk the egg whites until they’ve doubled in volume and have soft peaks (2-3 mins).

Very slowly pour in the sugar syrup while you keep whisking, avoiding pouring the syrup over the beaters. Keep whisking until the mixture has turned glossy and thick and has firm peaks (about 5 mins).

Using a large metal spoon, dollop the meringue mixture on top of the cupcakes (you can use a piping bag if you want it to be less free-form).

Place the cupcakes under a grill until the meringue has just started to turn brown (keep a close eye on them) or use a blow torch to lightly brown the meringue.