Flavour of the Month: Banana Chocolate Chip

We haven't been baking much. We've been too busy getting back to school. But what we have baked has been banana chocolate chip flavour. 

Over the years, the boys, and in saying that I include The Bavarian, have become very limited in the cakes they request. Brownies, carrot cake and coconut tray bake are their usual requests when I make the mistake of asking what they'd like. The only times of year they ask for biscuits are Advent and Easter. 

But recently they took me very much by surprise by asking for a banana and chocolate cake with coconut sprinkles. When I mentioned having to look up a recipe, Number One decided to play the parent on me and said "Before you do that, I have three questions for you". 

Me: OK

Him: Have you ever made banana cake or bread?

Me: Of course

Him: Have you ever made chocolate cake?

Me: You know I have

Him: Aha, and have you ever put coconut sprinkles on a cake or on buns?

Me, finally seeing where this is going: Yes

Him: So what do you need a recipe for? You can do it.

Pep talk over, he put on his coat and went to school, safe in the knowledge that his capable mother wouldn't let him down and knowing that Number Two was still at home to ensure I didn't try to change the plan. 

What the boys didn't now was that I have a recipe for a chocolate chip banana cake  in one of my notebooks. But under the watchful eye of Number Two I didn't feel I could go rooting it out and using it. We made a basic bun mixture, mashed in one and a half bananas, stirred in about 100g of chopped dark chocolate and baked it as a tray bake. When it was cool, I cut it in half and make a sandwich cake with chocolate ganache in the middle and on top. The whole thing got a good dusting of coconut and I awaited the verdict. 

It looked far from spectacular, but the boys loved it, as did our visitors. We were hard put to keep a slice over for The Bavarian, but he was very pleased we did. I am under instruction to make it again. 

A couple of days later, with the cake still fresh in our minds, I saw that Sinead from Bumbles of Rice had posted the recipe for her banana oat cookies with chocolate chips. I mentioned the combination to Number Two and he insisted we try them straight away. It was 8.45am. Normally at that time on a kindergarten morning I would try to put him off immediate baking, but these seemed so quick that we could get them made and baked before having to leave the hosue at 9.20am. And we did. 

Number Two did most of the work, starting with chopping chocolate into chunks. "I'll just taste it to make sure it is still good" is his catchphrase for these kind of jobs.

Mixing the banana, oats and chocolate chunks was a tougher job than Number Two thought. Luckily he had his Batman bicycle glove on to protect his hand, as you do while baking.

The mixture needed a final beating by mammy's strong hand to get the consistency right before being dolloped onto the baking tray.

After 12-15 minutes the cookies were ready to remove from the oven. They taste best left to cool fully and crisp up a bit on the outside. 

Number Two promptly packed a few straight into his lunchbox for kindergarten. Then he made the mistake of tasting them still warm. "Yuck" was his first reaction. Later in the day when he noticed me, Number One and Number Three tucking in, he gave them another go. This time round he enjoyed them better. So much so that we made another batch after dinner. 

So that's been our flavour of the month. I wonder what next month will bring.

Delicious Danish Pastries a 4 Year Old Can Bake

Recently I made blueberry lemon danishes and posted the recipe on my cookery blog, My Kitchen Notebook. They were  big hit with The Bavarian, but since the boys don't like lemon they turned up their noses at them. I was sure that if I changed the flavouring they would love them. So I did, and it turns out I was right. They might as well have inhaled them, they were gone so quickly. It also helped that it was Number Two rather than me who did the baking. It is often said but quite true that when children make something themselves, they are more likely to eat it. 

Number Two was home from Kindergarten for lunch and I was planning to get him to help me bake. In the end though he made them completely on his own. I only had to do the dangerous bits (sharp knives, oven, etc.). From start to finish it took us just over half an hour, including 20 minutes baking time. 

So here's the recipe:

150g cream cheese
3 dsps icing sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tin of croissant pasty (ours was 250g and usually makes 6 croissants)
50g dark cholcolate, cut into small chunks
25g flaked almonds
An extra 50g icing sugar for the icing

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (fan). Combine the cream cheese, icing sugar and cinnamon and beat with a spoon until smooth. 

2. Open the can of croissants and unroll the pastry onto the work surface. Number Two was speechless when the pastry burst out of the tin as he pulled the wrapper off. 

3. Pinch the perforated edges together to close up all the holes and prevent the filling leaking out.

4. Spread with the cream cheese mixture, making sure to spread it right out to the edges. Then sprinkle it with the chocolate chunks and the nuts.

5. Roll up the pastry loosely like a swiss roll. Then cut into slices about 2cm thick. Our roll made eight slices. Lay the slices into a greased tin, leaving some space between them for the pastry to expand as it bakes.

6. Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes.

7. While the danishes are in the oven, mix a thick white icing with lemon juice or water and 50g icing sugar.

8. When the danishes are finished, remove them from the oven but leave in the tin. Drizzle with the icing immediately. Leave to cool for at least 15 minutes before eating. 

Child's play!

Milk comes from a cow (or goat or sheep), and then? - A Lesson in Cheese-Making

Last Wednesday, as the end of the Easter holidays loomed, we spent a perfect morning in the garden clearing out, trimming back and planting seeds. We try to be a little self-sufficient and grow some of our own food, partly for the flavour and partly to give the children a sense of where food comes from. I find it important that they know how it grows, plus it encourages healthy eating. We're lucky to have a garden, but a lot of what we plant could be grown on a balcony or even a decent-sized windowsill. I always make sure to include cress among the herbs and plants that we grow from seed. It sprouts so quickly and it is ready to eat within four days if left in a sunny spot indoors. The children look every morning to see how it is coming along and by the time it is ready for eating, some of the other seedlings that are slower to germinate (radishes, rocket, peppers) will be beginning to show signs of life. 

This time round all the chat about watering and seeds bursting into life had me wondering how much the children understood where dairy produce comes from. They know that milk comes from cows, sheep and goats. We've been on a few farm holidays and that much has sunk in. But I wasn't quite sure how far their knowledge extended from there. And so our project Cheesemaking began. 

Now this may sound like a bit of an ordeal to go through with a six year old and a four year old, but I promise you, it is quite simple. We chose an easy method I'd used a few years ago after seeing a recipe for soft cheese made from yogurt. Remembering what I'd learnt from my original attempt, I chose to use a really good quality yogurt, Glenisk Greek Style Yogurt. The boys were really excited about it, even my not-so-cheese-friendly older son. He adores Glenisk yogurt since his baby days when he had a cow milk allery. Glenisk goats milk yogurt saved the day. Thankfully he grew out of the allergy, but his taste for thick and creamy Glenisk has remained.

Here's how it goes: 

500g Glenisk Greek Style Yogurt

1 1/2 tsp salt

Approx. 500ml olive oil

2-3 dsps chopped fresh herbs

2 cloves garlic (optional)

1 tsp chili flakes (optional)

A large glass jar (a Kilner jar is ideal)

Spoon 500g Glenisk Greek Style 
Yogurt into a bowl and give it a mix.

Add 1 tsp salt and stir well to distribute the salt in the yogurt.

Sterilise a muslin cloth. A baby muslin works perfectly for this. A clean one, obviously. You may not want to let on to the kids that you have simply washed and sterilised the cloth you usually have draped over your shoulder when burping baby. 

Place the muslin over a bowl or saucepan and then pour the salted yogurt mixture into the centre of the cloth.

Give it a little wobble to centre the yogurt into one big blob on the muslin.

Bring the edges together and use a string to tie the muslin. 

You will notice that immediately the moisture begins to drip from the yogurt mixture. This is the point where you show off your expert dairy knowledge to your children and explain that the lump in the muslin is the curds and the yellowish water dripping out is the whey. Cue singing 'Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet....'!

Here comes the best bit of this recipe - place the whole lot in the fridge and ignore for 2-3 days. In order to hang the cheese high enough I removed the middle shelf from the fridge and used a s-hook to hang the cheese from the top shelf. I placed a small bowl underneath to catch the whey. Then I slotted the middle shelf back into the fridge.

Speaking of fridges, if you are anything like me you may want to take this chance to de-clutter the fridge and give it a quick wipe down. It'd be a shame to let your cheese get tainted by the smell of the half a banana that your baby didn't finish and that has been lurking menacingly at the back of the fridge for a couple of days. (Please say it is not just my fridge that is like this!).

We left our curds and whey in the fridge from the afternoon of the day we made it and the whole of the following day. The afternoon of the next day we took it out and proceeded with the next steps.

 

Have your sterilised jar, oil, garlic, herbs and spices ready. Then take the curd from the fridge and remove the muslin. The consistency should be a little firmer and dryer than cream cheese.

Add the chopped herbs, spices and garlic to the jar. 

We used thyme, rosemary and chives along with some chili flakes.

Add the oil until it comes about half-way up the jar. Remember the level of the oil will rise as the cheese is added.

Using a teaspoon, break off even-sized lumps from the block of cheese and get the kids to roll these between the palms of their (washed!) hands to form balls. My meat-loving four year old got creative and made some sausage-shaped ones too. Just let them pretend it is plasticine / play dough.

When all the cheese has been shaped, drop it gently, piece by piece into the oil. This will prevent the balls sticking together.

Top the jar up with oil until the cheese is completely covered. Stored in the fridge, the cheese should keep for at least a week, if it survives that long. 

The kids were thrilled to have made their very own food and I was delighted that we now have Glenisk taste and quality in the form of cheese. It got eaten pretty quickly and was especially popular topped with our windowsill cress, which was ripe for harvesting just one day after we made the cheese.