Cooking with Children - Halloween Cakes and Biscuits

I love cooking and baking with the boys and for me the secret is letting go and dealing with the mess afterwards, plus good planning, making sure all the ingredients are out and the equipment etc.  I think that by empowering the boys to cook and bake it will stand them in good stead as they get older, plus they can start cooking dinner and feed me!
 

Also it might not look perfect, but I can assure you it tastes mighty fine.  So I bring you Maxi's chocolate cakes and biscuits.

Basic Biscuit Recipe

I use one without egg and it is fine if over handled, so perfect for children

175g/6oz Plain Flour
100g/4oz Butter or Margarine
50g/2oz Caster Sugar
Pre-heat oven to 180

Cream the butter or margarine and caster sugar
Stir in the flour and once mixed knead the dough together until it forms a ball
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 5mm thick

Spooky Chocolate Web Cakes

6 oz margarine
6 oz caster sugar
5 oz self raising floor
1 oz coco powder
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
Icing Sugar
Hot water

Cream margarine and sugar
Add eggs, flour, coco powder and baking powder, then 2 tbls of milk
Cook for 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

To make the web, mix icing sugar and hot water and cover the cake.  Create a swirl in black icing (we used Silver Spoon Black Designer Icing kindly supplied by Silver Spoon) and then take a cocktail stick and drag the icing out towards the edge.

These cakes are all Maxi's own work and they looked fantastic and tasted even better!

I would like to say thank you to Silver Spoon for supplying me and the boys with some of their cake decorating goodies.

We are entering in the Big Autumn Bakeoff with this!

Tiffin/Rocky Road

In an homage to my fellow MAD finalist Nick at My Daddy Cooks, Mini and I made a twist on his and Archies Tiffin 

We followed Nick's basic recipe, but made a few tweaks as we went along.

125g butter
250g digestive biscuits
4 tbsp golden syrup
3 tbsp high quality cocoa powder
75g raisins
250g plain/dark chocolate

Instead of using the microwave we melted our butter, golden syrup and chocolate over the stove, for me I love the way it all melts together, so smooth and silk like.

We then added it to our biscuit mix and added in raisins and mini marshmallows.

What is truly great about this recipe is that mini did most of the work, but adding golden syrup, you make the chocolate more pliable and it takes longer to set.  I always add golden syrup to the chocolate when making crispy cakes or our Jelly Baby Jesus Cakes

We placed the mix in to a silicon tray and pushed in some more marshmallows on top and I left it in the fridge for an hour or so, whilst mini set to on the spatula and bowl.

Once it was set, I cut it in to very small squares.  We have been enjoying this as a treat once the boys are home from school with a nice cup of tea.

If you would like to vote for me in The Mads (Mummy and Daddy Blogger Awards) then please follow this link.  I really appreciate your vote.

The Best Ever Oat and Raisin Cookies in the world

I dont say it lightly, but these cookies are amazing and never last in our house.  They truly are the best.  This is an American Recipe (it came on the back of some sunmaid raisins from the US), but that said is super easy for the boys, as I have some plastic cup measures that they use.

So here goes

Ingredients

3/4 cup softened butter or margarine
1 cup soft brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1 cup Raisins

 

Method

Heat oven to 180. 
Beat butter, brown sugar, caster sugar, milk, egg and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
Add to butter mixture and mix well.
Stir in oats, raisins and nuts, if using. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from cookie sheets.
Cool on wire racks.

Then get the children to clean up after themselves!

If you like them, then I am sure you will love the best carrot cake in the world ever too, dont take my word for it, have a look at some of the comments.

The Gallery - Portraits

This weeks prompt over at Sticky Fingers for The Gallery was Portraits, how apt seen as I received these from school this week.

They don't get much more adorable than this, do they?

I am so lucky to have two such wonderful children, so some special things about my boys.

I love nothing more than my morning snuggles with Mini, he often comes and joins us at some point during the night and we love it, we are cherishing the fact that he wants to be close to both me and MadDad.;;;;;I

I love the fact that tucking Maxi in to bed is always such a treat, he is usually asleep before you even get out of the room!

It is hard to believe that Mini is very nearly as tall as Maxi and he now has size 10 and a half feet!

I am so impressed with Maxi's reading, it is coming on in leaps and bounds and he gets really animated when reading to us on an evening, the four of us sit together on the sofa and really love this time.

I also really like the fact that they are becoming part of our neighbourhood and love that they are often called on to come out and play (I go up to my bedroom and watch them out the window).

I think maybe the time is coming for the stabilisers to come off Maxi's bike.  We are only holding off, as we know that what one does the other always wants to follow.

There is nothing better than coming home to two boys who make my heart sing and make most things a joy.

They both blamanche or milky jelly.  They adore making it, which couldn't be simpler.  Dissolve the jelly in a quarter of a pint of boiling water, allow to cool but not set and then add half a pint of milk, pour in to moulds then pop in the fridge 30mins later you have this....

Perfect to serve with strawberries.