Baking something different

Bob putting his mix in the cases

As with a lot of children up and down the country today ours had an extra day off so there was no hurry to get them home today, so we decided to spend some time cooking in the kitchen.


Normally when I cook with the grandchildren we normally only have the time to make Bob friendly cakes but as a change for Fifi we would make normal cakes



First up we made a batch of "normal" cakes for Bob, you know my egg, gluten, dairy free that we are expert at by now, but as yummy as they are I decided to make normal for Fifi as well. We made and cooked Bob's first to prevent the risk of cross contamination from our other baking. Whilst Fifi and I were cooking Bob decided he would watch Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo with granddad. How lucky is grandad!!


Chocolate cakes

adding the eggs

I decided for the chocolate cakes we would use  a basic recipe combining same amount of marge, sugar and eggs with double the quantity of flour.  I also made this into an educational lesson for Fifi and teach her a recipe. This is difficult with "Bob safe" baking. So she learnt today twice flour to other ingredients  and that an egg (technically cos grandma says so not cos we weighed them) weighs 2 oz.  Fifi did not want to use the food mixer so as we were using tub margarine rather than our normal Flora cuisine, she also learnt about aching arms and the tediousness of beating and stirring.

Then to go down a totally different route.something we have not made before we decided to make two different sorts of muffins. Years ago I was given the book, "The big book of bread by Anne Sheasby" It does not really have a lot of bread recipes in but has plenty of others I have never tried.

Blueberry Muffins

These were easier on Fifis arm as they involved melted butter and milk to mix with the egg and dry ingredients, and used up the blueberries  had in the fridge. These make a very pleasant cake, and very easy for children to make.

stirring together the dry ingredients

Bacon and cheese muffins.

I picked these for us to try as I had four slice of bacon in the fridge open and it gave Fifi a chance to learn about "rubbing in" as the marge was rubbed in rather than melted, it let her grate the cheese and also learn that not all baking has to be sweet. These seem a bit weird just because they are savoury but were very nice and would make them again



How good a grandma am I?? lol





Fifi loves being in the kitchen and enjoys cooking as well as baking. She is quite excited as mummy has told her that during the first week of the school holiday she is responsible for the meals. Her and mummy are going to meal plan, make a shopping list and go and buy the ingredients, and then the onus will be on Fifi to feed them all. Her mum has a nice big open plan kitchen/living room so she will not be on her own, and she often makes the tea anyway. She is a dab hand at minestrone soup and has learnt the hard way sharp knives will cut your fingers as easily as the vegetables.  She has burnt her hand before now, but she has learnt to be more careful. She knows the rules and what she can and cannot do and I think this is one life lesson all children should learn.

This is something both her mother and I enjoyed doing as children and I could make and serve a full Sunday roast with yorkshires and all the trimmings by the time I left primary school. I will do an update on that as it happens, and she can bring the food over on the Monday night here and make tea for us all.

chocolate, blueberry, cheese and bacon