baking

Meal Prep Monday (02/06/2025)

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I am inspired. One of my Facebook friends shares, it seems, everything that she makes for lunches and treats and dinners, and every single photo is terrible and unappetising. A page I follow, on the other hand, shares what she eats and what she makes for healthy everything, and everything looks fantastic and healthy and an Anna Thing To Eat. In my “I can do that, too” mentality, and with the amount of food prep that actually happens Friday-Sunday (usually), I now plan to do a roundup of that on Mondays for you. You’re welcome. Actually it’s also part of me reminding myself of achievements. If I feel like I’ve just been opening yoghurt pouches and doing the washing and chopping up oranges and doing the washing and separating squabbling children and doing the washing and sorting the washing and doing more washing, noting the other things really helps. Yes, I did all those other things too, but now I also have a record of the snacks and other things prepared. Lots of them include chocolate chips.

Friday normally gets me baking something but we had stuff to do so, no. Saturday morning, though, I baked sweet potato and apple oatmeal, sweet potato and banana chocolate chip bread, and “4 ingredient peanut butter banana bars”. That’s in quotes because, as is so often the case with recipes with a small number of ingredients, whoever did the recipe didn’t actually count. Out of bananas, peanut butter, vanilla, oats, salt, baking powder and chocolate chips, some of those are clearly more special than others. I am not, however, game to omit any. And also, I couldn’t find the silicone loaf pan I wanted so as the recipe makes 6-8 bars, I used a 6-hole silicone muffin pan and I will be making these again. New favourite, despite the lack of accountability (ha pun).

You may have noticed a theme with both bananas and sweet potato. We suddenly had a glut of 12 very ripe (black) bananas. Although I love Our Go-To Banana Bread, I had made it recently as bread and muffins and mini muffins and there was only so much I could take. With recent baking and Saturday’s baking, I cleared the build-up just in time for a fresh bunch to start going spotty. Good times. The sweet potato was from our farm box. Not the most recent one. The one a fortnight before that. I didn’t weigh it, but it was about the size of a toddler’s torso. Glenn used some in a couple of meals. I reserved some for baked oatmeal and then had enough to try this bread as well. The bread is fantastic and will be made again.

Less exciting meal prep but very necessary meal prep happens on Sunday evening. If we have eggs, I hard boil four of them. C and I both enjoy them during the day. Everyone else does, too, but E and S are not so adept at peeling or biting without the egg bouncing away. I also do a batch of overnight oats which will do me for three breakfasts. I did not do either of those things for a few weekends in a row and I was really feeling it. Mornings were a bit more rushed. Snacks were a little less varied and less protein-rich. I’m back on track now, though, and much relieved.

Top left: Sweet potato and apple baked oatmeal https://thenaturalnurturer.com/baked-apple-sweet-potato-oatmeal/

Top right: Sweet potato and banana bread https://thenaturalnurturer.com/sweet-potato-banana-bread/

Bottom left: “4 ingredient peanut butter banana bars” https://sammibrondo.com/peanut-butter-banana-bars/

Bottom right: hard boiled eggs. I draw on them so we know they’re boiled and not not-boiled. I am not good at drawing flowers.

And Now She Is Four

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For at least a month before her birthday on the weekend, E would wake up and ask, “Am I four now?” The more often she asked – the closer it got to her birthday – the more dramatic her response to “No, not yet”. A slightly disappointed “Aww I want to be four!” progressed to a slightly angry “BUT I WANT TO BE FOUR NOW” which progressed to dramatic facepalms and “STILL?!?!” I assured her that I had wanted her to be born well before now, too, but her birthday would come along eventually. I don’t think that helped AT ALL but what can you do? I even tried showing her on a calendar and that just made it worse.

It finally, finally was her birthday. Her whole-body reaction of delight and relief and happiness when I could say “Yes” to her sleepy question – well, it made my day. We made her day as special as we could, with croissants for breakfast (family tradition passed along from my side); church (where the girls – the drama! – missed out on the usual post-church ice cream because somebody ELSE who was NOT turning four was actually celebrating being ordained for 40 years and put on a barbecue but thank goodness the girls’ favourite person – a lovely girl who is nearly 10 – was there and made a lovely fuss over E); seeing a favourite honorary Auntie at the play cafe for a babycino and treats and a big play; her request for dinner (sausages); and her choice of cake. 

Whenever I asked what sort of cake she wanted for the party, she gave me a different answer. For the cake for on her actual birthday to have with family, she wanted “a chocolate cake and strawberry cake”. When we went to Woollies on Saturday and were up to the cake department, she put on her fastest feet ever, zoomed over and pointed to the pavlova with strawberries on it. Ohhhhh. Phew. Easy. I love making cakes for my family for celebrations, but also, there was a lot on over the weekend and not having to add “make and decorate a cake for family” made me just that little bit less stressed.

Last year I had decreed that birthday parties could only happen every second year. If you turn an even number, you get a birthday party (which, admittedly, didn’t work out for S last year turning two.  Oops). E was looking forward to her mermaid birthday party in the park for over a year. Unfortunately, she is a summer baby and the weather often gets in the way. In the planning stages, we could see that the weather for the week leading up to her birthday weekend was set to be raining, so any parks in our area would be sodden messes. This would make for the best day ever in her whole entire life but I just couldn’t do it. Thankfully, daycare was quite happy to put on a little party this week. We sent in cake, balloons, party hats and party bags, and let them deal with it all. Win.

Well, almost win. When I was decorating the cake (a 5-layer rainbow cake with ‘violet’ icing and Frozen snowflake sprinkles, and panicking that I didn’t know if the icing was looking enough like violet to satisfy this all-shades-of-purple aficionado), I was a little bit sad that I wouldn’t be there celebrating her party with her. I wouldn’t get to see her excitement. I wouldn’t get to see her face. I wouldn’t get to see her put as much of a slice of cake as is humanly possible in her mouth and kind of sit with it for a while before, to my amazement, managing to chew and swallow before finishing off the rest of her slice. I wouldn’t get to wipe ‘violet’ icing off her cheeks or fingers. I would only be able to imagine her face as “Happy Birthday” was sung to her around a cake with candles alight, seeing her eyes down and eyebrows raised far up in such an E expression and the widest and most delighted smile on her face as she took in all this joy for her. All this joy because E finally turned four and we love her.

Baking the Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Are you ready to make the best chocolate chip cookies you have ever made? Of course you are. Here we go.

Start this recipe as far in advance as you can. “Ready in less than an hour” does not apply here.

Gather your supplies. You will need:

2 cups of wholemeal plain flour (white plain flour works fine here too)

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon bicarb soda

1 1/4 cups chocolate chips – vegan if necessary 

2/3 cup coconut sugar (or 1/2 cup packed brown sugar)

1/2 cup granulated or caster sugar

1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon olive oil or coconut oil

1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon water

Plus: 2 mixing bowls – 1 medium and 1 large; and measuring cups and spoons.

As you gather your supplies, children gather nearby, realising that baking is imminent. They clamour for the ladder which is allocated on a first come, first served basis. Second child gets to fetch the step stool from the bathroom. Third child is reminded how tall they are and actually don’t really need height assistance.

Start measuring your 2 cups of wholemeal flour into a medium bowl. A child will insist on doing this with you. The pride you feel when they tell you any of the numbers they see on the measuring cups is soon overridden by the spray of flour as they tip it only partially into the bowl. 

Don’t stress it. Somehow this process makes it better. I don’t know how.

A teaspoon of baking powder and a very approximate 3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda go in too. Children take turns to stir, sometimes remembering to hold the bowl. Some more flour mix may be launched out of the bowl. This is fine. We are fine.

Next come the chocolate chips, and relief. 1 1/4 cups of chocolate chips need to go into the flour mix. This is more than a standard pack of chocolate chips so don’t be complacent. Your helpers are at the height of helpfulness when testing of the chocolate chips is underway. Often this is their cue to leave you to yourself to get on with things, if they score enough of a batch to test for quality. Or to see if they prefer milk or dark. This is all important. Embrace it.

Next, bring out the large mixing bowl. Put the medium bowl out of reach of children. The chocolate chips are still visible in this mix so are at risk of further testing.

Into this bowl you will need 2/3 cup of coconut sugar (or 1/2 cup packed brown sugar which will end up thoroughly tested and quite spilled and therefore further tested); 1/2 cup of caster sugar; 1/2 cup plus an extra teaspoon of olive oil (or coconut oil but I personally can’t stand the scent so steer clear); and 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon of water. Mix this vigorously. I prefer using a fork for this but I realise most people are fancy and use a whisk. 

When the mix is, you know, mixed, add the flour mix to the wet mix and stir with a wooden spoon. Mix just enough for there to be no more clumps of unmixed flour. 

If you are baking these anywhere from October to April in Brisbane, you will probably need to put the bowl in the fridge now otherwise your cookies will become one. 15 minutes or so should do it, or as long as you need to deal with having a cheeky nap or changing a toddler nappy or putting out washing or if you just forget. It’s fine. 

Get 2 baking trays and line them as you usually line them. Bring out the cookie dough and, if you’re feeling generous, let the helpers know you’re up to the next stage. Clean hands. Rings off. I make a line across the middle of the dough so I can keep track of how much for each tray, and then scoop a spoonful of dough into my hands to roll into a ball then onto a tray. Depending on the capabilities of the helper, they may need some guidance in the amount of dough to use, but I find if they have enough play dough experience they will catch on pretty quickly and not need help in rolling it into a ball. No need to stress if they taste test the dough. No egg, no worries. Winning. This batch makes 26 cookies which suits my preferred layout of 3-2-3-2-3 on each tray. Do a little squish on each dough ball, using cute little helping fingers or a fork. 

Chill time is essential. If you can find room in your freezer for these two trays, good for you. Whack them in for 30 minutes. Otherwise, into the fridge for … some time. Like, at least four hours. I usually leave them until the next morning, but whatever works. When you remember them, turn on your oven to 175C. If you get your cookies out when you turn on your oven or if you leave them in the fridge or freezer until the oven is ready is up to you, it just affects the baking time. When the oven is hot, put the trays into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. If they are not looking like your preferred cookie consistency, keep them in for another 2-5 minutes. They should be a little bit golden brown. 

Get your helpers out of the kitchen so you can open the oven and remove the trays. We put ours on our stovetop, with oven mitts on the sides closest to the front. Remind your helpers these are HOT and they are to keep their hands off. They will likely repeat this information to you, possibly while reaching out to touch the hot thing if they are a very sensory-seeking child like my 2yo. Keep those little fingers safe.

The next stage is, honestly, my favourite: sprinkling sea salt flakes over the baked cookies. Note that this is not the same as grinding salt over it so make sure your independent oldest child is aware of this and doesn’t accidentally grind pepper over your freshly-baked cookies. Sea. Salt. Flakes. Sprinkle them over, as sparingly or liberally as you wish. Leave the trays there while you deal with children wanting to do painting or needing morning tea or breakfast or whatever you’re up to, then transfer to a wire rack.

In our family, I will put aside a container of these for my husband (usually getting about 8 in a container) so that he actually gets to have some. Whatever remains on the tray after this and children wanting a cookie and then another and maybe a third, goes into our cookie jar. And even though these are, you know, chocolate chip cookies and not known for their health benefits, because they use wholemeal flour and coconut sugar and olive oil, these are cookies I can say “Yes” to when a child wants one for breakfast or in the afternoon and know that it won’t make them any more crazy cuckoo bananas than they would have been otherwise. That’s always nice.

This recipe is from Katie’s Amazing Kitchen and you can find the original recipe here. I have tweaked it only very slightly to suit Australian measurements and our weather and our lunchbox compartment sizes.

St Andrew’s Day

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Such a big deal is made out of St Patrick’s Day. And I know, everyone loves the Irish – I even married one. But I try to make Scotland’s day, St Andrew’s Day, just as important in the rhythm of our life. 

In previous years I have made raspberry Cranachan, and Scottish sausage rolls (at least, that’s what the recipe called them). This year we are in the midst of the baby screeching phase and the 3-year-old needing me in her bedroom the whole time until she falls asleep phase so my efforts were limited. I had ideas to make handprint Scottish thistles and cotton wool Scottish flags but C was ‘not really in the zone for that’.

So this year was the year we celebrated the national animal of Scotland: the unicorn. You can’t really pass up an opportunity to make unicorn cupcakes.

The cupcakes were made Monday afternoon, mixed at the dining table while E had her afternoon tea. The decorations were also made at the dining table, while E had her lunch today. There was much wheedling from C to taste just a teeny tiny incy wincy smallest ever piece of fondant… she may have snuck a few specks while I was looking the other way. She also tried to eat the bit of fondant that she was using but that was a very hefty chunk that oh just makes me queasy thinking about it. Ugh. The icing was made and cupcakes finally decorated after lunch.

This was our first time making unicorn cupcakes. Next time I will make sure we leave the fondant to set fully (normally we do any shapes the day before). And next time I will make sure to find my actual piping bag with actual attachments instead of using a sandwich bag with a hole cut in the side. It just isn’t the same. 

Our Go-To Banana Bread

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that families with young children will never have the right number of bananas. There will be none, when they are the favourite food or the only food guaranteed to be eaten and suddenly they are all gone; or large quantities will be bought in anticipation of the favour with which they were seen yesterday, only for them to grow spotty and brown in the fruit bowl before being moved to the fridge with promises of baking.

We are currently in the latter stage. When this happens, my favourite banana bread recipe comes out. (From Cookie and Kate, find it here: https://cookieandkate.com/healthy-banana-bread-recipe/ )

It is my favourite because it uses only 2 bananas. So many recipes require 3, and we rarely get to the stage of that many spotty or brown bananas.

It is my favourite because it is fairly healthy. Bananas, oil, maple syrup, eggs, milk, cinnamon, baking soda, vanilla, wholemeal flour. Optional extras like chocolate chips. I have no qualms about serving this for breakfast.

It is my favourite because we usually have all the ingredients on hand. If not, there are many options for substitutions. It is always frustrating when the urge for baking is upon us and we are out of something vital like sugar.

It is my favourite because it uses only 2 bowls, a fork and a wooden spoon (as well as a loaf tin). No need to get out the electric mixer, find an available socket, find the beaters, find extra bench space… 

This has also been an ‘evolution of baking with C’ recipe. She has been making it with me since we started baking together (she would have been a bit past her first birthday) and has progressed from starting the banana squishing process, to helping tip the measured ingredients in, to trying to stir the mix, ‘testing’ the add-ins, and now finding the correct cup measurements for me. I can’t wait for E to start helping too!

Our usual version:

Squish 2 bananas. While a helper is doing this, turn on oven to 170C and line a loaf tin with baking paper.

Whisk together 1/3 cup oil with 1/2 cup maple syrup. Add 2 eggs, beat well. Add the bananas and 1/4 cup milk, whisk.

Add a teaspoon each of baking soda and vanilla, and a half teaspoon each of cinnamon and salt, and mix well. Add 1 and 3/4 cups flour (wholemeal, preferably) and stir in with a wooden spoon. Add 1/2 cup add-ins (chocolate chips – or, you know, raisins or walnuts or something else healthy) and stir gently.

Pour mix into prepared tin, bake for an hour.

Makes 10 thick slices. Sometimes we do them as muffins instead – 10 muffins, baked for 25ish minutes. Yum.

When We Baked Jamie’s Precious Pear Tart

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Glenn is very much the cook in our household. I enjoy it, and can cook stuff when required, but Glenn will find amazing recipes and flavour combinations and ingredients and cook us delicious food. It is one of the ways he shows his love for us. However, I am the sweets baker in the family. For Father’s Day, Glenn requested I make the Precious Pear Tart from Jamie Oliver’s new book, Together. Thankfully, I have more experience now at assessing how long a dish will actually take. Things like actual helpfulness of my helper, and baby nap successes, must be taken into account.

Friday. A large bag of Imperfect Pears were bought. My helper and I chose the best 12.

Saturday. I bought the extra ingredients in the morning… except for elderflower cordial, which was nowhere to be found in our local supermarket. Glenn assured me he would find it in the afternoon.

He did not. Due to Covid, there was no supply. Elderflower tonic water was bought instead.

Saturday night, after the girls were in bed, I managed to soak the pears in the syrup, reduce the syrup, and measure the dry ingredients into bowls, in between attending to baby wake-ups.

Sunday. During the lunch nap, my helper and I made the base. Later in the afternoon, we managed to make the filling, choose the best of the soaked pears, put them in the frangipane, sample another pear for, uh, quality control, and bake the pie.

By the time it was ready, it was far too late for a 3yo to have sugar. Glenn and I enjoyed some after dinner, and the 3yo was allowed to have some on Monday. Which really meant, she had her ice cream in a separate bowl and ate that first and had a meltdown when Glenn made her have a bite of tart with ice cream but recovered and licked the ice cream bowl and tried a bit of the tart, just a bit, and said she was really sharing it with me. I’m ok with that.