Chocolate Cinnamon Crumb Squares

Wouldn't rave about these but they do stick to yer ribs and they are chocolaty. Need some cream to go with them. Frankly can't taste the cinnamon.

For the crumble topping 

• 50g plain flour 
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder 
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon 
• 50g light muscovado sugar 
• 50g butter

For the cake 

• 200g plain chocolate 
• 175g softened butter 
• 200g light muscovado sugar 
• 3 eggs 
• 175g self-raising flour 

Make the crumble first and set aside. Make the cake (cream butter and sugar, melt chocolate, add, etc.). Pour into 20cm square tin, top with crumble, bake at 150 for 40 mins, until skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10 mins then dust over with icing sugar and cut into squares.

Pretzels

• 5 cups flour 
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 4 cups warm water 
• 6 tsp dry yeast 
• 1.5 tsp salt 
• good glug veg oil

Plus hot water and 0.5 cups (!) of baking soda, and some coarse salt

Make the dough in the usual way. Shape into pretzels. Then put the baking soda into the hot water and dunk the shaped pretzels into it and lay them on the trays, sprinkle them with salt and bake at 230 for about 8 minutes or golden brown.

If your dough rises this much you've left it a bit too long. 

Mr B (Breakfast/Snack Banana Slice)

Make a sponge in a slice tin, with 250g made up of flour, raw oats, and desiccated coconut and baking powder. Three eggs, 150g melted butter, vanilla essence. Mix, into lined slice tin, bake at 170c. When done, make a syrup in the microwave from a good dollop of golden syrup and a slosh of orange flower water. Spoon on top of the slice. Cool, cut into two layers. Lightly spoon cream over the base and layer with banana slices, replace top, dust with icing sugar. Rather tasty.

Scones

3 cups flour, 100g butter, 1.25 cups milk (approx), baking powder.

Crumb butter into flour and then mix into dough with milk. Cut into rounds, bake at 200c. Serve!

Pina Colada Cake

This was meant to be Russian Cherry Cake but we had no cherries. So we went all Puerto Rican instead.

You'll make three or four sausages of pastry filled with pineapple, sugar and coconut mix, roll them up into snakes inside a springform pan, and bake 'em at 170. I found the bottom baked less than the top because of the squidginess factor so it might be a good idea to foil up the top and put it slightly towards the bottom of the oven for longer.

For the pastry there's 3.75 cups of flour, 120g butter (melted), two teaspoons of baking powder, a cup of yoghurt and 0.5 cups of sugar combined. Yep, a lot of flour. I found I had to add a bit of milk into this mix because it didn't hold together well enough. Roll up, make yer stuffed snakes, curl 'em up. Cut as per normal cake. Rather nice, actually.

Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies

120g butter, melted
120g peanut butter (pref crunchy)
0.5 cups each of granulated and dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup plain flour, plus 1 good teaspoon baking powder
Good handful each of white choc chips, chopped peanuts

Cream all butters and sugars, add egg, mix in flour, then the chips and nuts. Roll into balls and bake at 180 spaced apart. Leave for a few moments to cool and crispen up. Pretty tasty.

Cinnamon Teacake

This originally came in a cake tin but I baked it shallow in a swiss roll tin and cut up into thin half-biscuit half-cake slices. Went down well with a side of cream and served with hot chocolate.

Whisk 130g butter with 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar and plenty of vanilla essence. Stir in 2 cups of self-raising flour (or equivalent) and 2/3 cups of milk, half at a time. Bake at 180. Turn out upside down. Melt butter and brush over the top, sprinkle all over with cinnamon sugar. Cut up into squares.

Apparently they're 'all the taste of a doughnut, in the convenience of a square'.

Potato Parkers

Good for the day after Pasta Night when you have pasta dressing left over. For us it's both meat and veggie - bolognese and tofu-spinach-nut.

Sauce in ramekins at the bottom, parboiled, well-salted slices of potato on top, cheese sprinkled, and baked. Was incredibly well-received and much healthier than loads of sugar and carb.

I guess it's pretty much a dinner dish if larger. One child opined she could 'eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner'.

Cinnamon Doughnut Baby cakes

More like cupcakes, really. 250g flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 0.5 tsp salt, 0.5 tsp cinnamon, mix. Mix separately 80g melted butter, 175 caster sugar, 1 egg and 180 ml milk. Combine, Spoon into little patty pans and bake. When they come out lather them over the top with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top. They actually do taste like doughnuts.

Salted caramel peanut oat cookies

BEWARE: These are affectionately known as 'Brick Biscuits'. Delicious, but do NOT expect light-n-fluffy. This is serious stuff. Proceed with caution.

The process is: make oatmeal biscuits with a dent in the middle, heap in toasted peanuts in caramel sauce, then top with chocolate.

Biscuits: Cream 210g softened butter, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Add 1 egg, vanilla essence, and beat. Add 1 cup plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt and 2 1/2 (yes 2.5) cups of rolled oats. Combine. Roll into 16 balls and squish lightly onto baking trays, leaving expansion room. Bake for 10 minutes, then take out of the oven and make an indent in each biscuit centre, then return to oven for another 5-8 minutes. Allow to cool.

Meanwhile caramelize 1/2 cup sugar with a couple of tbsp water - microwave's fine. Add 50g butter and 1/4 cup cream, cook again until it goes good and caramelly. Dump in 1 cup of plain roasted peanuts. Spoon into the indents into the cookies.

You can drizzle melted chocolate on top but oponions are divided on this.

Chelsea Buns

1 cup milk, 1 egg, 50g melted butter, 500g plain white flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 75g sugar, 2 tsp dried yeast.

Into the bread machine to do its thing and make the dough for you.

Now, usually chelsea buns are filled with dried fruit but our kids aren't that keen on that so I do lemon marmalade and chopped white chocolate instead. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, spread whatever filling you're making, roll up into very large sushi roll and cut cylinders to stack tree-ring wise in a baking tray. Allow to rise. Bake on high until they're lightly coloured.

As soon as they come out, lather them over in a mix of orange blossom water and sugar (you'll need to heat it to get the sugar to melt) so they're sticky and delicious. Turn the little suckers out and separate them while they're still warm.

I think I have yet to meet someone who didn't go crazy about these.

Coconut Macaroons

Four egg whites, 1 2/3 cups sugar, 2 cups desiccated coconut, vanilla essence.

Whip up the whites, meringue them up with the sugar, then fold in the vanilla and coconut. Dollop onto greased paper and bake at 150 for quite a while. Maybe 35 minutes or more? Makes tasty chewy biscuits and they're jolly easy. Good afternoon snack.

Custard Cornucopias

Nothing could be easier. 

1) Make custard. (Custard powder's fine. Microwave is not only fine but excellent.) 

2) Chill. (Both you and the custard.) 

3) Wrap ready-made puff pastry round pastry horn moulds. Bake. Until both the pastry and your ego are puffed.  

4) Pipe cooled custard into horns (with a snipped-off sandwich bag works fine). 

5) Dust with icing sugar. 

Kids yum 'em.

Cake Pops

You obviously need a cake-pop maker for these. But for a gimmicky little gadget, it actually gives good returns in child satisfaction, and the pops don't take long to make at all. I served some for afternoon snack in a giant martini glass (forget the tedious poles, just cake balls) and the kids thought it was ever-so swish. Here are the recipes that came with our cake maker. Each batch makes 24. Do a couple of batches for 4-5 hungry kids and they'll have a few to take to school the next day.

Vanilla cake pops 

• 60g butter (softenend) 
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1 tsp vanilla essense 
• 1 egg 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 3/4 cup plain flour 
• 1/3 cup milk 

Cream butter and sugar, add the rest, bake.

Chocolate Espresso cake pops 
3/4 cup flour

• 1/2 cup caster sugar 
• 2 tbps cocoa powder 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 50ml milk 
• 5o ml fresh brewed espresso 
• 1 egg 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essense 

Mix everything, bake.

Strawberry cake pops: 
As per vanilla with pink food colouring and strawberry essence instead of vanilla.

Chocolate Chip cake pops
As per vanilla with 1/4 cup of choc chips

Red Velvet cake pops 

• 60g butter (softenend) 
• 40g beetroot, peeled, grated 
• 1 cup plain flour 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essense 
• red food colouring 
• 1 egg 
• 1/3 cup milk 

Beat butter and sugar, add egg then rest. Bake.

Citrus cake pops. 
As per vanilla with grated citrus zest.

Apple Fritters

Great breakfast or snack - or even dessert.

Batter:
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 scant cup milk
vanilla
approx 40g melted butter
a few spoons of sugar

this will coat about 5 medium sized apples, though it's a bit of a toss-up. I would do about 1.5 apples per person so theoretically this would be enough for about 3 people. Depending on their level of hunger.

Peel and core the apples, slice them into reasonably thick slices ring-wise, microwave covered in cling film for about 5 minutes or until they're somewhat soft but not falling apart. Cool them a little before you coat in batter (besides, it's hard to handle otherwise).

Shallow fry, and sprinkle with icing sugar as they come out of the batch and go into the serving bowl (so you don't get a bunch of sugar on top at the end and none on the bottom). Serve with maple syrup and/or cream. Or even ice-cream.

Lemonade scones

Very handy breakfast item.

2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 each of cream, lemonade
1/2 cup sugar

I like to add some milk powder 'cause it makes it creamier (I think). Half a cup maybe.

Combine, bake either in balls or you can roll cut them out like cookies. Only takes a few minutes. Great if you've run out of bread in the morning and can't be bothered to make pancakes.

Potato pizza

Pizza base, with thinly sliced potato. Cover the base with tomato sauce, layer the potato slices, season with rosemary, salt and pepper, and top with cheese. Might try microwaving the potato slices next time to make sure they're evenly cooked through.

Caramel Slice

Caramel Slice

Well I thought this was a bit too sweet but the kids gave it the thumbs up. So we'll keep the recipe.

Base:
3/4 cup self raising flour
3/4 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
125g butter, melted

Filling
can sweetened condensed milk
2tbs golden syrup
50g butter


Put the base together and bake in slice pan until just set. Heat the filling ingredients and cook on stovetop until 'light golden' for 6-7 minutes. Only I think I cooked it too much because it wasn't getting golden and next time I'll just put it in the oven after a short while - got pretty biscuity.

Let the whole thing cool and then cover in melted chocolate. Cut up and give to kids. Stand well back.