cooking with huckle :: apple oat loaf...

I've received some wonderful Mama wisdom on my last few posts. Thank you sweet ladies for your words of encouragement. I am so grateful.

Despite the toddler shenanigans that are going on around here, there's still good times. It's like a big swinging pendulum... only nobody knows which way it will swing!

Last week I set up a little experiment. Huckle loves to help cook, so I thought I could give him something to cook all by himself (so to speak). 

I measured out all the ingredients into individual bowls and placed them onto the table with a mixing bowl and spoon. I then invited him to make Apple Oat Loaf.

He was so focused and didn't ask for help at all. He took his time sprinkling a little bit of each ingredient at a time, tasting each flavour as he went and mixing them all together.

I only stepped in to help mix it thoroughly at the end.

This is a great recipe for little ones to make, as there is no special method at all, you just throw it together. It kept Huckle occupied for a good half hour and he was proud as punch to serve his loaf for morning tea.

Apple Oat Loaf

1/2 cup rolled oats

300ml milk - we used cows, but you could use soy or almond milk to make it dairy free

1 & 1/2 cups of spelt flour with 3 tsp baking power mixed in

2 apples - peeled and grated

1/2 cup sultanas 

1/3 cup rapadura sugar

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup walnuts roughly chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix together. Bake in a loaf tin at 180 degrees celcius for 45-60 minutes. Check with cake tester, as all ovens are different. Allow to rest in tin for 5 minutes before cooling on cake rack. Enjoy with butter. Also good toasted. Freezes really well too.

another love story...

A couple of weekends ago, we set off to the sunshine state for my sisters wedding. 

They had an intimate ceremony and dinner on the Saturday and a Newlywed's picnic on the Sunday. It was such a wonderful weekend, with perfect weather to boot. 
You may remember me designing the invites a while back, well the whole wedding was a family affair, with everybody chipping in to help. We even managed to rope Mum's friend in to finish the bunting at the 11th hour.
On Sunday morning the boys went off to set up at the park, while the ladies got busy in the kitchen. At one stage I was breastfeeding Arlo, while giving orders and instructions to the merry band of helpers. 2 sisters, 1 Mum, 2 friends and an aunt. We made baguettes, sandwiches, cinnamon scrolls, fruit platters, antipasto platters, cupcakes... and don't forget the cake! 
Mum was in charge of the baking of the most magnificent cake. It was a 10 layer Red Velvet affair. How amazing does it look! I wish I got a picture of it cut.

Here's the cute couple too. 

Don't mind the knife wielding bride, she is really quite sweet.


Congratulations Melly and Zan! 

bake day... carrot loaf...

I love baking sweet things, but I'm not keen on the high sugar and white flour in a lot of recipes. I like to change the sugar to rapadura sugar and the white flour to white or wholemeal spelt flour. This makes it denser and a lot more wholesome. 

When I discovered this recipe over on mkhandmade's blog, you could just imagine how happy I was. I changed the flour (oh and I change the nuts too, because I only had walnuts) and we had a delicious loaf to snack on for morning tea that sustained us.

Here's my adapted version:

How's your week going?
It's been lovely and sunny here.

moving to a big bed and banana bread...

We've just begun the transition into big bed territory over here and so far it's going ok. It's a bit of a battle to keep him in the bed while I leave the room, so for now I sit by his bedside and practice my pranayama (yoga breathing) while he gets the hint and cozies up to sleep. I'm seeing it as an opportunity to be still and prepare for birthing baby number two, as pranayama allowed me the strength and awareness I needed through Huckle's birth. 

The day nap is proving to be another battle entirely. We'll see how we go with that one. 

Now, onto a different topic all together! Banana Bread.
I seem to be forever chasing the perfect banana bread. I thought I'd worked it out way back here, but then I grew complacent and it lost my devotion. I can't even remember what lost me, maybe I need to revisit the recipe?
The other day I tried a new recipe from The Women's Weekly Bake Cookbook. Of course I changed a few things a) because I struggle to follow instructions EVER and b) simply because I didn't have the exact ingredients. 
I think I like this one. It has a lot going for it. The crumb is good, lovely flavour, fluffy enough to be indulgent, yet wholesome enough to be almost healthy (minus the sugar).
I'm not saying it's a winner. For surely my taste will change and I'll flutter off to the next version. I know what I'm like.
How do you like your banana bread? Are you a recipe flirt like me? Or do you have an old flame that still burns bright?
Please share if you have a winning recipe. That is if it isn't a top secret Nanna recipe.

a good dough...

Do you make bread? Do you make it how I do? It's super easy and really doesn't take that much effort at all. I decided I wanted to push my dough a little further, to see what it could become. So last night as my dough mixed itself about in Willow (my kitchenaid), I thought some thoughts and this is what I came up with.

Whenever I make dough, I make enough for two loaves. One is gobbled up that day & the next and the other is often sliced and frozen. But that's not all that exciting is it? So last night, I released half the dough into a seperate bowl and to the other half I added sunflower and flax seeds. This morning I settled the seedy dough atop sesame seeds instead of my usual polenta and ta da! A perfectly tasty, seedy loaf. Lookout John Dench! (The main reason I make my own bread, is because I sadly do not live around the corner from Dench anymore and no other bread has ever won my heart... until now of course.)

The other half of the dough became cinnamon scrolls. I rolled it out into a long rectangle, liberally coated it with melted butter, cinnamon and sugar. I then rolled it up, cut the log into 4cm pieces and squashed them into a buttered baking dish. I winged all the quantities here. I just threw them on and stopped when it looked right. I baked these for just over half an hour. A simple icing was drizzled over while they were still hot. This was made using icing sugar, milk and vanilla extract. You want the icing to ooze down the cracks and sides. Were they delicious? Yep! 

The good thing about these too, is that because they use my usual bread dough, they're denser and more wholesome (thanks to the wholemeal and rye) than the cinnamon scrolls you can buy at most bakeries. But yes, they still fall into the "treat" category, thanks to the sugar and icing.

What do you think? Will you make some? They're so good, we've almost finished them. Piglets, I know.


Note: The recipe in the link makes just one loaf, but the quantities are easily doubled.

yummy chewy jam rocks...

I have been craving jam drops of late, which is quite odd as I don't actually like them all that much. They're often too sweet for my taste & I'm not a fan of the shortbread texture either. 

I tried to ignore the calling, but after a few days I gave in. Instead of making the traditional style, I conjured up my own. They're not too sweet & are much healthier too, so little Huckle can enjoy them as well. 

I took a woman's weekly bran & apricot biscuit recipe & did a little tweaking. They're a bit of a cross between jam drops & rock cakes, I shall call them jam rocks.

 

Chewy Jam Rocks

1 cup white spelt flour

1 tsp baking powder

(or 1 cup SR flour)

1 cup desicated coconut

1 cup unprocessed bran

1/2 cup brown sugar

125gm unsalted butter, melted

1 egg, lightly beaten

Jam of choice

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

Form into inch sized balls & flatten slightly onto baking tray, placing them 5cm apart.

Make an indent into the top of each biscuit. You make have to do a little reforming, as the mix tends to crack a little here. Work with two hands to keep it together.

Drop a smidge of jam into each biscuit.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Enjoy with a cuppa & try to make them last more than one day.