Category: baking with kids

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No Sugar Carob Fudge

What a chalenge to find a great little ” sugary tasting”  treat for you and your family ! Well lately a friend of mine introduced me to  this special caroub fudge and what a suprise for me to find that it is Deliiiiciouuss !! I thought that  sharing this  with you would be a great idea… it is a creative recipe and soOoo easy to make !!

 

 

What you will need:

~ 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil

~ 2 cups of unsweetened carob chips

~2/3 cup of peanut butter

~1/2 cup of coconut

~1/3 cup of walnuts

~1/2 cup of dry raisins

~1 tsp. of vanilla

 

 

Place the carob, peanut butter and oil in a pan at  low temperature, stirring constantly just until smooth. This will give you a great “chocolate” color…it already looks delicious !!
Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Spread out in a greased  8 x 8 square pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hrs. Then cut in squares or as you desire.
Keep them in the refrigerator or you could also freeze the balance for unexpected sweet cravings…
**  I do find that the fudge is hard to cut in perfect square…but it is still as good 🙂 **
Note:  With the basic recipe (carob, peanut butter and oil) you can create so many different variations of this recipe…why not use your favorite nuts, some popped quinoa, cranberry or even some spices..the sky is the limit 🙂
Enjoy !!!!
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Irish Soda Bread I

Are you Irish and getting ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Maybe you just love all things green? Every year at this time you can find beautiful displays of Irish soda bread at the grocery store. Hmm, the sample at store tasted so good this year. But at $4 for a very small loaf we passed on it. Instead of buying a loaf we decided to have a go at making our own this year.

This little Leprechaun guy told me soda bread is not that hard to make. Should I believe him?

You can find a host of recipes on the internet. This weekend we tried the version below. Our loaf is baking as I am typing these words. Hope it turns out all right. I can’t wait to pull it from the oven…

  • 4 cups of flour (plus a bit more for kneading)
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking
  • 4 Tsp butter
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 3/4 cups buttermilk

How to make it?

Step 1: Set the oven temperature at 425 Fahrenheit. In a big mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients (except the raisins). Mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda together with a spoon.

Step 2.: Cut the butter into small chunks and add to the  bowl. Incorporate butter using your fingers or a pastry cutter. Work the butter into the flour until it looks like course meal. Then stir in the cup of dried raisins.

Step 3: Make a well in the center and pour in the beaten egg and buttermilk. Stir until you get a sticky dough. When you can’t work it any more with the spoon use your hands to shape the dough into a ball. Turn it out onto a floured surface where you can knead it a bit more. Be careful not to knead it too long or you bread might end up too tough.

 

Step 4: Lightly grease a cookie sheet or bake your bread in a greased skilled ( that’s what we used). Take a serrated knife and cut an x-shape into the top of your bread. Sort of making it look like a big hot cross bun.  You want to cut rather deeply, about 1.5 inches deep so your bread gets baked properly.

 

I baked this loaf for 30 minutes. After 25 minutes I had to put some aluminum foil on top so it would not get too tan.

We just pulled it from the oven and chewed halfway through the loaf. Yummy it’s really good. It was very easy to make too. Next week I want to try the whole wheat version. So stay tuned for a healthier version..

Ulla Seckler  is a dollmaker who was born and raised in Germany. She lives in beautiful Colorado with her husband and two kids. You can find her Notes by a German Dollmaker on her blog where she shares some great German recipes, pictures of her sweet dolls, and life lessons learned.  Don’t forget to stop by her Etsyshop and take a peek at her wonderful doll creations.

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Sunday Morning Waffle Disaster

My 10-year-old really enjoys cooking these days. She found a recipe for waffles that she has been bugging us to make for months. The ingredients sounded good to us. But it sounded all a bit involved. Don’t you just love the kid cookbooks where it says “ask an adult for help”. This Sunday was the day she convinced us to help her.

The recipe, or waffle project, came from  Kit’s Cooking Studio, an AmericanGirl cookbook… Kit is the AmericanGirl Doll character whose story is set in the Depression era.  Accordingly, the recipes revolve around that topic. So it’s really fun to learn a bit of history while cooking.

The waffle recipe called for the following ingredients:

1 2/3 cups of flour

1/3 cup of corn meal

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup of rolled oats

2 cups of milk

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 eggs

1/3 cup oil

butter

some kind of topping like syrup/ honey/ fruit

How to make it?

Step 1. Put the flour, corn meal, baking powder, and salt into a sifter. What is a sifter, mom? Hmm, we don’t have one. I guess back in the depression era people had to sift everything because there may have been little bugs in your flour. So we didn’t sift our flour and mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Step 2. Put the milk, honey, and vanilla in another bowl.

Step 3. Here it comes…” Have an adult help you separate the egg whites and the egg yolks as shown.” Followed by a little picture where the adult is carefully separating the eggs. My daughter who is not exactly Miss Patient wanted to forgo the “help by adult part”  so we went through a couple of eggs before it worked …

Step 4. Mix the egg yolks into the wet ingredients (bowl with the milk in it).

Step 5. This step was followed by the next disaster. The recipe goes on telling you to stir the wet mixture into the dry flour mixture of ingredients. Huge mistake! We instantly got big lumps. Years of cooking and baking have taught me that it’s always better to put the dry ingredients and stir them into the wet ingredients. Why did we not follow our instincts and do it that way? Dad had to come to the rescue and get the hand mixer out to take care of the lump situation.

Step 6. “With adult help” beat the egg whites until they are shiny and slightly stiff. Yippee! Success! This was the easy part. Not a problem since our eggs were perfectly separated after many attempts. LOL

Step 7. Next you are supposed to fold the egg whites gently into the batter. Some lumps of egg white are okay!

Step 8. Last,  have your adult slave put the Waffle mix into the preheated waffle iron.

Well, that’s when the whole project went totally South. The batter stuck to the waffle iron so badly that we could not get it out.  See photos. What went wrong? My husband got so annoyed that he wanted to toss the waffle maker into the trashcan. Then came the tears of disappointment. We all started joking that it was a book about the Great Depression after all.

I think it’s great my daughter wants to learn how to cook, and I love the idea of teaching history while we do it,  but can we please have easier recipes that don’t wipe out the whole kitchen after I spent all of Saturday cleaning my house from top to bottom?

We ended up making pancakes with the batter. And let me tell you they were REALLY yummy!

Ulla Seckler  is a dollmaker who was born and raised in Germany. She lives in beautiful Colorado with her husband and two kids. You can find her Notes by a German Dollmaker on her blog where she shares some great German recipes, pictures of her sweet dolls, and life lessons learned.  Don’t forget to stop by her Etsyshop and take a peek at her wonderful doll creations.

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Autumn Apple Skillet Cake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

apple season  …  the apples have been picked and they are beautifully rosy, red .. naturally … now its time to make some naturally sweet and warming …

 Apple Skillet Cake

Apples

  • 2 or 3 medium tart apples (such as Mac), cored/ sliced
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons orange juice or apple cider
  • generous sprinkling of your favorite combination of sweet spices(cinnamon, nutmrg, cloves, cardamon, ginger, etc)
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cake

  • 1 1/3 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2/3 cup warm milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 6 tablespoons melted butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9 ½” to 10″ (2″ deep) cast-iron skillet; or a 9″ square cake pan. 
2) Combine the apples with the brown sugar, orange juice/ cider, spices, and salt. Set aside.  
3) Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. 
4) Mix the warm milk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture, stirring to combine. Pour into the prepared skillet. 5) Arrange the apple at the bottom of the skillet in single layer pattern. Over medium head for 10 to 15 minutes let apple mixture caramelize and brown 


6) Pour the batter on top and bake the cake for about 40 to 55 minutes until it is a light golden

 

7) Remove from the oven, and cool for about 5 minutes. Loosen the edges of the cake from the pan, and place a large plate on top of skillet, turn over and serve. 
 ….this apple cake recipe was adapted from a recipe found here.
Enjoy!

reprinted from original post by prettydreamer  from “whither will i wander

 

prettdreamer

Hello, I am Pamela of Prettydreamer.   I am mama to a lovely prettydreamer  of my own.  I am still in love with toys,  storybooks and fairy tales of all kind.  In love with trees, rocks, maps and unknown places. And love stumbling upon ideas turned upside-down, folk hands  and honest traditions that run deep. and all the other friendly playful things that function or are simply made to bring joy
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Pumpkin Spice Bread—Heck, Veggie Spice Bread!

We are primal in our house, meaning that we don’t eat grains of any kind, and we try to keep our foods as whole as possible. It’s hard for the kids though who tend to be snackers and grazers, and with a busy family schedule we need some “to go” foods.

This recipe is one that I make all the time. It’s easy, quick and I can use pumpkin, sweet potato or zucchini, what ever I have on hand.

Pumpkin Spice Bread

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp pumpkin spice blend or spice

6 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 tbsp vanilla

Preheat oven 350. Combine dry ingredients and mix. In bigger bowl combine wet ingredients and blend well. Mix all together. Grease pan with coconut oil, and bake 25-30 min, or until done.

Hope you enjoy making this easy recipe with your kids!
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Nature Inspired Breads

Being a German Immigrant I often get this question: What do you miss most about Germany? Over the years the answer has remained the same. Besides family, of course, the thing I miss most about Germany is bread. After living in the US for over 15 years, I still have a hard time finding decent bread in the grocery store. The first couple of years I was so depressed about the choices here that I tried to bake my own. But living at high altitude, I found it very difficult to bake good bread. I gave up on sourdough breads completely, when one day I managed to produce a loaf that was so hard it resembled a brick, and my husband suggested we try burn it in the fire place…

But never mind my failures. I found one great recipe that works even at high elevations. It is really fun and easy to make. I make it to go along with soups. The whole family loves the flavor, and the kids have been intrigued with the bread’s leaf-shape since they were little and started to reach for the bread basket.

I found the recipe in a cooking magazine many years ago. It’s been so long I can’t even recall where it came from. But it’s a French style bread called Fougasse.

Here is what you need to make it:

4 cups of flour (I use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 3 cups of regular flour)
1.5 cups of lukewarm water
tsp of yeast
1-2 tsp of sea salt ( I use 1 tsp since I try to cut down on sodium)
2 Tsp of Herbs de Provence
2 Tsp of extra Virgin Olive Oil plus some more
corn meal

How to make it:

Put the flour, herbs de Provence, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the lukewarm water in the measuring cup. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then add the water with yeast to the flour, add the tablespoons of olive oil and knead everything together. If you have a KitchenAid mixer, you can just stand by and watch as the dough hook does all the work for you. If not, roll up your sleeves and with some elbow grease you can do it. It’s not so bad! Once the you have a nice big ball of sticky dough, put a little olive oil into the bowl and coat the outside of your dough ball with it. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place.

After the dough has risen for about an hour split it into two equal parts. Roll out each into a flat roundish disk shape. Use a Pizza wheel and cut slits in the shape of the veins on a leave into your bread. Pull the dough slightly apart to make the holes bigger where you cut it.

Place each loaf on a cookie sheet that you have sprinkled with corn meal. This will keep your bread from sticking to the sheet plus give it a nice crispy bottom crust!

Cover both breads with kitchen towels and let them rise in a warm place. While they are rising, arrange the racks in your oven so that you can bake two loaves at the same time in it! Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rub some olive oil on the loaves of bread right before you put them into the oven! Put loaves in an set the timer for 9 minutes. After 9 minutes switch the two cookie sheets around. The bread that was baking on the top needs to go to the bottom and vice versa. Bake for another 9 minutes or until the bread has a nice color.

Can you smell the beautiful aroma of the Herbs de Provence yet? Yummy! It’s so good! And you get two loaves at once. We eat one loaf with our soup. The other I use for fixing school lunch sandwiches.

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Snow Muffins

SNOW?

Got too much this winter? This recipe calls for a whole cup! Kids love to scoop up the snow and mix it into the batter of these fun muffins!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (you can use some whole wheat)

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ cup sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup milk

1 egg ( the yellow disc in the photo is a frozen egg. We keep chickens in the summer and freeze extra eggs for winter baking)

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon grated orange or lemon rind

1 heaping cup clean snow

(optional, add nuts, chocolate chips or raisins)

Method:

Makes 10 muffins. Grease the muffin tin. (Or let your kids do it, just be sure to do it again before spooning in the batter)

Mix the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Beat the milk, egg, butter and rind in a smaller bowl.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix.

Add the heaping cup of snow and mix in lightly.

Spoon the batter into 10 greased muffin tins and bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.

For extra fun, create an icing sugar snow sprinkling by sifting ½ teaspoon of icing sugar on top!

This recipe brought to you by Eve of Eve’s Little Earthlings. Eve ran a home daycare for 10 years and helped kids make snow muffins every winter.

You can view her all natural toys here: http://www.eveslittleearthlings.etsy.com/

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Golden Pumpkin Raisin Muffins

You are probably thinking: Oh no! Not another stinking’ muffin recipe! There are so many out there. I know there have been a few on the NaturalKids Team blog in the past. But I promise you won’t be disappointed if you try this one. They are so good you will make them over and again!

I hope you have some winter squash stored in your basement or cellar, since that is the main ingredient that makes your muffins golden and pretty. Cut up and bake that old Butternut, Acorn, or Zucca Barruca at 350 Fahrenheit in the oven. Hmmm, my frozen feet are finally beginning to thaw out in this cold drafty house…

Besides 15-16 ounces of processed squash pulp you need the following items:

2 cups of flour
¼ cup of wheat germ
½ teaspoon of baking soda
½ teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
Fresh Grated Nutmeg (kids love to do it!)
½ teaspoon of salt
6 Tablespoons of melted butter
½ cup of milk
½ cup of brown sugar
¼ cup of white sugar
2 large eggs
Several kid sized handfuls of raisins

How to make them:

Give your child a bowl and the list of dry ingredients such as the flour, wheat germ, baking powder, baking soda , spices, and salt. My kids really enjoy measuring and mixing things together. It’s such a great way to teach them about measurements and what happens if you get things wrong…But with a little supervision a 6-year old can do this!

In another bowl mix melted butter, brown sugar (make sure you work in all the little lumps with a fork!), white sugar, add melted butter, beaten eggs, milk, and pumpkin pulp. Mix well together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet pumpkin mixture. Throw in the handfuls of raisins.

Grease a muffin pan and flour it. You can also use paper cups, but these muffins are very sticky and will disintegrate when peeled off from the paper too soon! So if you want to eat them warm from the pan the greasing option is probably the way to go!

Bake for 20-25 minutes in preheated oven at 375 degree Fahrenheit!

This recipe will make about 17 muffins. This is another plus, besides the great taste, if you have a growing ‘tween boy who will eat 5 muffins in one sitting…

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beds, books and donuts

Today’s recipe (and book suggestion) was originally published by Pamela of Prettydreamer on “Wither Will I Wander”.

While under the weather, sick in bed for three weeks (that is, almost the whole month of April) … there was definitely time to read a lot in bed.

Homer Price by Robert McCloskey had it’s chance for a second time around read. This time read by my child who could mostly read this sweet book herself.

Homer Price contains a series of lovely short stories about life for a young boy from the town of Centerburg. The cast of characters includes: a pet skunk, the string savers club, sandwich advertising man, a comic book super hero, a tinkerer and a hermit inventor and the not to be missed latest, modern “time -saving” machines. Like many of McClosky’s books, “Centerburg Tales” shares
that sweet, slow moving time that children live into.

Now about those donuts ….

Having no new-fangled, modern machinery at my disposal and not wanting to fry donuts in a quart of oil …. I came across this wonderful recipe for baked donuts.

They were very tasty and an important way to end reading about “the donuts”.

“Homer pressed the button marked ‘stop’ and there was a little click, but nothing happened . The rings of batter kept right on dropping…gadgets kept right on turning them over…”

Ingredients

  • 7/8 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 tablespoons buttermilk or yogurt

Directions

1- Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

2- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and buttermilk or yogurt until foamy.

3- Pour the liquid ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.

4- Butter or grease the doughnut pan; non-stick pan spray works well here. Note: even though the pan is non-stick, since the doughnuts are low-fat they may stick unless you grease the pan first.

5- Fill each doughnut form half full.

6 – Bake the doughnuts in a preheated 375°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. When done, they’ll spring back when touched lightly, and will be quite brown on the top.

7- Remove the doughnuts from the oven, remove them from the pan, and allow them to cool on rack. If desired, glaze with icing, or dust with cinnamon-sugar or any non-melting sugar.

This recipe is originally from the King Arthur Flour website.

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Make vanilla coconut oatmeal cookies

Today’s recipe was created by Steph from Elemental Handcrafts, full of beautiful earth-friendly handcrafted pieces. She made these cookies up for her kids to give them a healthy (but so cleverly disguised) snack. Thanks, Steph, for sharing this great new recipe.

RECIPE: Make Healthy Vanilla Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients :

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup unhullled sesame seeds
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/2 shredded raw coconut
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup maple syrup (or other natural sweetener)
1/2 cup barley malt
2 tablespoons vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper or spray your pan with oil.
Combine dry ingredients in large bowl.
Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl and mix well.
Add your wet to your dry and mix until well incorporated.
Drop by spoonful onto prepared baking sheets and bake for about 15 minutes, until lightly brown.

*hint* Measure oil first, then maple syrup and barley malt. The oil left in the measuring cup will keep the malt from sticking.

Makes: 24 cookies, Preparation time: 10 minutes, Cooking time: 15 minutes

Here is one of Steph’s new beautiful needle-felted dolls!