Have you suddenly found yourself at home with your brood, quickly running out of options on how to keep them out of mischief? You’re surely not alone in that respect! However, having a list of go-to activities is worth its weight in gold when you start hearing calls of ‘I’m booooorrred’ being thrown around.
Getting the kids involved with helping you in the kitchen is a great idea for many reasons, and not only as a way to keep them entertained. It introduces them to the process behind what ends up on their plate, gives them an appreciation of what’s involved, inspires a creative attitude and it’s fun!
So without further ado, here are our favourite kid-friendly baking recipes for you and your little ones to try out together.
Banana oat cupcakes with salted caramel crunch
They’re cute, they’re tasty and they’re super simple to make… oh, and did we mention they’re gluten free? Keep reading for the ingredients and method.
For the muffins
50g Nairn’s Gluten Free Porridge Oats
2 large eggs
100g coconut sugar or xylitol
100g coconut butter or vegan spread
1 large banana
100g coconut butter or vegan spread
100g gluten free plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
For the oat crunch
50g Nairn’s Gluten Free Porridge Oats, roughly ground
30g coconut sugar or xylitol
2 tablespoons melted coconut oil or vegan spread
1 teaspoon cinnamon
For the salted caramel
75g vegan spread
100g coconut sugar or brown sugar
2 tablespoons thick coconut milk
The method
First things first, preheat your oven to 180°C (gas mark 4) and line a muffin tin with cupcake cases.
Now on to the oat crunch topping. Combine the sugar, oats and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the oil to the mix to form crumbs and set it to one side.
For the batter, grab your food processor and combine the eggs, sugar, oil and banana, before adding the dry ingredients and lightly beating everything together.
Then, spoon the batter into your cupcake cases until they are approximately ¾ full, and sprinkle over a pinch of the oat topping.
Pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes, or as long as is needed to make them golden brown, and set them aside to cool.
Lastly, prepare the caramel by adding the vegan spread, coconut milk, and your chosen sugar into a pan and bringing it to a boil. Allow it to simmer for about 2-3 minutes, before leaving it to cool and thicken.
When it’s complete, drizzle the caramel over the cupcakes for a sweet and ready-to-serve finish.
Keep it simple - decorate an oatcake
Our oatcakes, flatbreads and oat bars offer the perfect blank canvas for kids to express themselves on. You don’t even have to tell them just how healthy they are too! Oats are rich in fibre, vitamins and minerals, they’ve got a low GI (which means a good dose of slow-release energy as opposed to a ‘rush and crash’ of energy that usually follows sugary foods) and they don’t contain any artificial nasties. Just hearty, wholesome wholegrain goodness.
Why not pick out some ingredients and a ‘canvas’ of your choice for your kids to tap into their artistic side with?
Sweet or savoury, they’ll love making faces and pictures out of things like chocolate chips, nuts, diced/grated fruit and veg, spreadable cheese and so on!
Why not try red pepper hair, olive eyes and a pastrami smile on one of our cheese oatcakes?
Or turning a flat bread into a flag with some cream cheese decoration?
Our Oat Bars are great too, just add some healthy icing made with vanilla quark mixed with a little light cream cheese, all topped off with a few slices of your favourite fruit flavour?
Mug cakes
Fancy a cuppa? These creative desserts simply involve throwing together a few of your favorite ingredients - kids (and adults!) will love ‘em, trust us. Here’s how we like to approach the Mug Cake.
The main part of the Mug Cake is the batter – this is the ‘cake’ part of the recipe. The other parts can be fun to customise to your own taste, but more on that later. For the batter you’ll need:
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 tablespoons rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
The method is as follows... simply grab a good sized mug (the larger the better, this batter will expand!) and whisk together the milk, olive oil, and sugar. Once that’s done add the flour, baking powder, salt and oats and whisk again until smooth.
Now for the creative part, the filling. There are many things that you could use to fill your Mug Cake with; a dollop of chocolate spread, condensed milk, peanut butter or jam for example. Or even a combination of these if you’re feeling extra indulgent. Once you’ve got your batter in the mug, just drop a tablespoon of your filling into the middle and push it gently so that most of it is submerged in the batter.
Then simply bung your mug and its contents into the microwave and cook on high for 30 seconds. You may have to give it several more short blasts in order to make your cake nice and springy (you can just use your finger to check the consistency). Leave your creation to stand for a minute – or as long as you can safely resist it for – and enjoy!
And there you have it
The name of the game when getting the kids involved in the kitchen is most definitely all about how creative you can make it. It’s something a bit different than the usual screen-time lounging and helps keep those ‘hangry’ tantrums from the door. If you try out any of the ideas in this blog, we’d love to see them! Just tag us in your photos or post them to our social profiles.
