I used to do a lot more baking with Lily before Thomas was born. Once I had two children in the kitchen fighting over a bag of flour it just seemed to become a lot more stressful and the clean up operation afterwards took twice as long!
Now he is 3, I feel like we can get back into baking again and I’ve discovered the easiest thing to make with them is rock buns! They are so easy to make (even I can get this right) and it’s a real hands-on recipe for them which they love helping with. You don’t need to get out an electric mixer or spend ages hand mixing and it takes very little time to do, meaning we can finish making them before they get bored
There is plenty of opportunity to get their hands in with the ingredients, feeling the different textures and seeing first hand how the ingredients change when they play with them. Finally, I love the fact that the dough can just be moulded in their hands and put onto the baking tray without all the sticky mess.
Here is the recipe we use for Rock Buns
100g (4 oz) butter or margarine
225g (8 oz) plain flour
10ml (2 level tsp) baking powder
2.5 ml (1/2 level tsp) ground mixed spice
100g (4 oz) Demerara sugar
100g (4 oz) mixed dried fruit
1 egg, beaten
about 5 ml (1 tsp) milk (optional)
Start off by greasing two baking sheets. Rub the fat into the flour, baking powder and spice until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Stir in the sugar and fruit. Make a well in the centre, pour in the egg and a little milk if needed, to give a stiff crumbly consistency.
Bind together loosely using a fork.
Use your hands to make rough heaps of mixture and place them on the greased baking sheet.
Bake in the oven at 200 degrees (400 f), gas mark 6 for 15 – 20 mins.
Delicious eaten warm and fresh or pop them into lunch boxes the next day. These work really well with gluten-free flour by they way!
Lily and Thomas working on our latest batch of Rock Buns!
What recipes do your children enjoy making?
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nickdixon1
We love making fruity banana muffins – 125ml vegetable oil, 100g sugar, 1 egg, 250g Self raising Flour, a pinch of baking powder, 2-3 bananas (depending on size) and one grated apple. Then we add whatever else we have around in the season (blackberries/redcurrants work very well)
Its really simply and my lot love mashing the bananas up! I like to think that each muffin is one of my 5 a day…… hahaha
Mix the oil, egg and sugar together in a big bowl until gloopy, then add the bananas then the flour. Stir in whatever other fruit you want to add and pop into 12 muffin cases (I use silicone ones.
x
Cook for 25 mins at 180 degrees. Yummy
Thank you Claire, I am going to have to try those! I have just invested in some silicone muffin cases as I always find that the mixture sticks to the paper ones. Not sure what I’m doing wrong but hopefully the silicone will solve that x