Recipes

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Hedgehog rolls

We recently had some friends over to play, and as it was the day after the “bread” round of The Great British Bake Off, I thought it would be fun to make some little rolls with the kids and then eat them for lunch! 

 

To make 6 small rolls you’ll need:

  • 12oz Strong Bread Flour – we used Wholemeal
  • 1 1/2tsp Quick Yeast (about half a Allinson packet)
  • 1tsp Sugar
  • Pinch of Salt
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 220ml of hand hot water (from the tap is fine!) 
  • Raisins for eyes

To make your little hedgehogs, start by putting the dry ingredients into a bowl, then give them a good mix to combine them. 

Next, add the oil and then the water. Start to mix together, as it becomes sticky get your hands in the bowl and start to knead the dough.

If the mixture is still sticky add some more flour and if it’s dry, sprinkle on a little more water.

Once the dough is combined turn out onto a lightly flour-dusted surface and knead the dough for 5-10 mins. The kids LOVED this part! 

Mould them into 4-6 hedgehog shapes and use scissors to snip into the dough to make spikes. We used raisins for eyes too.

Put the rolls on a floured baking sheet and cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm place for about an hour to rise. (We used the oven on lowest setting as we don’t have an airing cupboard!)

Next, heat up your oven to 200 degrees centigrade and cook the rolls for 25 minutes.  The rolls will feel firm and if you tap the bottom of them, they’ll sound hollow.

Ours lasted one mealtime! 

Enjoy x

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Cheesy flapjacks

I  know it sounds weird but bear with me. Apparently savoury flapjacks are a thing. 

As it turns out they are actually pretty delicious! I bumped into a friend in town a week ago and she was giving these amazing homemade flapjacks to her little ones and offered one to Alexander. To say he wolfed it down would be an understatement. I had to get the recipe!

Cheese and veg flapjacks

100g unsalted butter
300g porridge oats
350g grated cheese
2 beaten eggs
200g of one of any of the following (grated): carrot, courgette, red onion, sweet potato, swede, parsnip, or pumpkin. (I used butternut squash which worked well!) 

  1. Preheat oven to 180 and lightly grease a Swiss roll tin. 
  2. Melt butter in a pan over a low heat. 
  3. Take off the heat and combine all ingredients in the pan, mixing well.
  4. Press down into the tin using the back of your spoon/spatula.
  5. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown- they may need a few more minutes. 
  6. Allow to cool for 5 minutes then cut into small slices and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 
  7. Store in an airtight container. I think they should also be stored in the fridge but that’s up to you!

I didn’t manage to get a photo but they were such a hit with all four of us and a great way of sneaking in a bit more veg (albeit smothered in cheese….) without ending up in this kind of state:

 

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Recipe – Chocolate and Banana muffins

A friend recently directed me to the My Lovely Little Lunchbox site – full of ideas for baby led weaning and feeding toddlers. I’ve had a good look round the site and found it so inspirational. Will be trying out the pea fritters for Alexander soon! I’d recommend it to anyone looking to vary their child’s diet (or indeed their own!)

Anyway, one day last week the boys and I had to stay in all morning to wait for a man to come and look at our fireplace, so to combat the boredom I thought we should do some baking. As well as making a couple of purées for Alexander, while the littlest one slept Elliot and I made the banana and chocolate muffins. These fit in well with my current attempts to reduce the amount of sugar in Elliot’s diet and increase the number of fruits he’ll eat. Currently bananas on their own are on the “NO” list, which is bizarre as he used to hoover them up a year or so ago! Kids eh?

Banana and Chocolate Muffins
Adapted from My Lovely Little Lunchbox (do go and check out the original too!)

We substituted rapeseed oil for the macadamia oil, and runny honey for the agave syrup.

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Makes 12

Ingredients:
3 bananas
2 eggs
3/4 cup of yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup oil – macadamia is suggested but we didn’t have any in, so used rapeseed. I guess olive would have been fine too.
1/2 cup agave syrup (we used honey!)
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 heaped tablespoons cocoa

Heat your oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Put muffin cases into a 12 hole muffin tin.

Mash bananas and mix in all wet ingredients, whisk until well combined.

Sift in all dry ingredients, mix well.

The recipe I followed suggested using the 1/4 cup measure to spoon the mix into the cases, and I have to say what a genius idea! Even with a three year old “helping” me, that made it really easy. One cupful in each case!

15-20 mins in the oven and you’ve got some lovely muffins. I think I’ll look out for some macadamia nut oil and agave syrup as it would be great to taste the original recipe also.

Perfect after lunch treat after a boring Friday morning 🙂

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No Junk Apple, cinnamon and raisin muffins

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Picnic time is here again, and in an effort to limit the amount of sugar and hidden nasties in Elliot’s diet, I came across Organix’s recent No Junk campaign (you can read more about that here)

Organix had a fab recipe for these really simple muffins, which Elliot and I made yesterday to take along to a picnic. They contain no sugar, just maple syrup and the naturally occurring sugar in the fruit. To be honest they tasted a little bland to an adult’s palate but the kids absolutely loved them (and knowing they weren’t as bad as a shop bought cake made the mummies and daddies happy too!)

You can substitute the raisins and apples for other fruit and spices if you like.

The mix made 12 muffins.

Ingredients
3 eggs
3 tbsps maple syrup
2 tsps cinnamon
120mls olive oil
2 apples
150g self-raising flour
Raisins (couple of handfuls, to taste)

Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-assisted), gas mark 6.

Next, whisk the eggs with the maple syrup, cinnamon and olive oil. Grate the apples and stir into the egg mixture. Then add the flour and mix.

I then added a couple of handfuls of raisins before dividing the mixture into greaseproof muffin tins, and bake for approximately 20 minutes, until golden and cooked in the centre.

Enjoy!

Granola bars (almost healthy!)
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Granola bars (almost healthy!)

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I made these last week, in a bid to get more dried fruit into Elliot. They are so yummy, I’ll be adding them to our list of regular bakes!

Ingredients:
100g butter
200g porridge oats
50g walnuts
150g mixed seeds (pumpkin, sesame, poppy… you choose)
100g sugar (light brown)
100g dried fruit – I used a mix that included cranberries and apricots as well as sultanas and raisins)
3 tbsp runny honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon

To make, firstly heat your oven to 160C/fan 140C and get out a roasting tin. Put your oats, nuts and seeds together in the roasting tin and toast these in the oven for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, line and grease a 18x25cm tin.

Next, measure out the butter, honey and sugar and heat in a pan over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Once the oats, nuts and seeds have toasted, add these to the pan and then add the cinnamon and dried fruit. Stir really well to get everything coated fully, then tip into the prepared tin and press down into the corners.

This then needs to be cooked for 30 mins in the oven.

Cool in the tin and cut into 12-15 bars (depending on how generous you’re feeling!)

They keep pretty well in an airtight tin, if they get the chance!

Yum yum!

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