Easy Banana Bread

This recipe only takes 5 minutes to prepare before baking. Adults will need to put the mixture into the oven and remove it from the oven, but children can do all of the measuring and mixing themselves.

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour


Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

2. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

3. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla.

4. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

5. Add the flour last and mix.

6. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan.

7. Bake for 1 hour.

8. Cool on a rack.

9. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Enjoy!


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Rock Cakes

My husband grew up having these as a special treat. So today, he brought the kids into the kitchen and taught them how to make these fruity rock cakes.



Serves 12.

Ingredients

225g plain flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
110g butter or margarine
110g mixed dried fruit
55g raisins
55g caster sugar
1 medium egg
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp milk
demerera sugar for dusting

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200C (180C for fan-assisted ovens) or 400F.

2. line or grease baking tray.

3. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl.

4. Add the fruit, raisins, sugar and egg and mix well.

5. Mix in two tablespoons of milk.

6. Spoon 12 large spoonfuls on the tray or trays, spearating by about 1 1/2 inches form each other.

7. Sprinkle the tops with demerera sugar.

8. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool for 5 minutes after removing from the oven.

Serve and enjoy!

Make sure the parent or adult operates the oven and places in and removes the cakes from the oven for safety.





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Reduced Sugar Belgian Chocolate Truffles

These are delicious and decadent tasting smooth and creamy chocolate truffles.

The version noted here for is Belgian chocolate, but these could just as easily be made in any flavor, from simple mint chocolate to toffee chocolate or orange chocolate, depending on which flavor of Options or Skinny Cow sachet is used.

These are very easy to make and don't require any actual cooking other than a minute's use of the microwave, so kids can easily make these!

(The next time I make these, I will add a photo to this post.)

Makes 20

Ingredients

50g Dark Chocolate
113g Quark
6 tbsp sweetener
2 sachets of Belgian Chocolate flavor Options
1 tsp Cocoa to dust (1/2 syn per tsp)

Directions

1. Melt chocolate in microwave for 1 minute

2. Beat Quark with sweetener until creamy. Add melted chocolate and mix well.

3. Add the Options sachets and mix well.

4. Make into 20 blobs using a teaspoon and put on greaseproof paper or wax paper.

5. Put into the fridge to harden for about two hours.

6. Remove from the fridge and shape into balls.

7. Roll in cocoa powder and set in the fridge overnight.

8. Serve and enjoy!


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Quick Saint Patrick's Day Cookies

I had not planned anything special for St. Patrick's Day this year even though I usually do. So when today arrived, I knew I needed to do something quick.

My kids loved making and eating these green cookies. They were fascinated with the fact that the cookies and frosting were actually green.



Makes 12 cookies.

Ingredients

1/2 cup soft margarine or butter
1 cup sugar
1 medium egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp green food coloring
2 cups powdered sugar (icing sugar)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
Fry Light or other oil spray
decorative sprinkles (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

2. Mix the butter, sugar, egg, 1/2 the green food coloring and 1/2 of the vanilla extract together in a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and baking powder together.

4. Mix the two bowls together by pouring the flour mixture into the other bowl and combining with a spoon until thoroughly mixed.

5. Spray a baking tray with Fry Light or other oil spray.

6. Put spoonfuls of mixture onto try, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between each.

7. Bake in the oven for 8 to 12 minutes.

8. While the cookies are baking, mix the milk, powdered sugar, the rest of the vanilla extract and the rest of the green food coloring in a bowl together. (If the mixture is too thin, add more powdered sugar until you get the desired consistency.)

9. Remove cookies from oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes.

10. Once the cookies have cooled, pour the frosting mixture over the cookies. Add sprinkles if desired and then leave to sit for another 15 minutes.

Enjoy!













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Chocolate Spoons

These are incredibly easy to make and can be used as they are for a sweet chocolate lollipop or to stir into hot chocolate or for stirring coffee to add a bit of chocolate to it.

Ingredients

2 cups milk chocolate chips
plastic spoons
decorations (sprinkles)

Directions

Put the chocolate chips in a microwave safe mug and microwave for one minute.

Mix the melted chocolate chips until smooth and creamy.

Dip plastic spoons into the mug until the mouth of them is covered in chocolate. Tap on the side of to get any excess chocolate off each spoon.
Lay the spoons face down on wax paper/grease-proof paper and let cool until the chocolate hardens.

Sprinkle the cake decorations over both sides of the spoons.

There is also the option of making the spoons without any colorful cake decorations. The decorations just make the spoons more festive in appearance.



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Quick Fudge

This fudge is quick and easy to make, taking just a few minutes in the microwave and using only a few ingredients.

Ingredients

2 cups milk chocolate chips
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

In large glass measuring cup, combine Nestle’s Toll House semi-sweet chocolate morsels and sweetened condensed milk.

Microwave on high 3 minutes.

Stir until morsels melt and mixture is smooth.

Stir in vanilla extract.

Spread evenly into foil-lined 8-inch square pan.

Chill until firm, about 2 hours. Makes about 1 1/4 pounds fudge.

The kids lined some decorative gift boxes and poured the fudge into them to make quick and tasty Christmas gifts to give out.



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Graham Cracker Houses

Rather than making gingerbread houses which can be time consuming and difficult for children, try making these graham cracker houses instead. Graham crackers, if you live in the United Kingdom, can be found on-line at American Soda. You can also find the white frosting there as well.

Ingredients

graham crackers
white frosting
assorted sweets and candies (such as gum drops, midget jems, foam fruits, dolly mixture)
food coloring (red, green, blue, yellow)

Directions

1. Separate some of the white frosting into different bowls and add the food coloring, mixing them in until you have some white frosting, some yellow frosting, some green frosting, some red frosting and some blue frosting.

2. Break the graham crackers into squares.

3. Spread the white frosting along the edges of four graham cracker squares and stick them together, forming a standing square.

4. Stick one graham cracker square across the top using white frosting.

5. Using the different colored frostings, "paint" the house in your chosen colors.

6. Use the still-sticky frosting to stick different assorted sweets and candies around the house's walls.

Note: I ran out of graham crackers to use for the roofs, so the children used digestives (which are a round cookie that is similar to a graham cracker which can be found easily in the UK) to make the roofs to their houses.

Here are some of the results that the children came up with while making these.


















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