I take any excuse to bake. Any. Friends coming over, trying out a new recipe, using up food, to cheer me/someone else up, waking up in the morning...
Now, I have a legitimate weekly reason to bake - to include wholesome nut-free things in Sylvia's preschool lunches. And of course the rest of us in the household (and anyone I meet in the street) get to sample them too!
Her favourite are these chocolate chip cookies from Live. Learn. Love. Eat sweetened with maple syrup and made with wholemeal flour:
This banana bread (without walnuts) from the same blog was also successful:
We have enjoyed all the recipes from this blog, especially the peanut butter and jam thumbprint cookies and the cookie dough balls (which both unfortunately contain nuts so can't go in the lunch box).
These blueberry banana spelt muffins from Oh She Glows were also popular:
I love Angela's recipes! Pretty much everything I've made from her blog has been amazing, especially this quiche. I can't wait to get my hands on her new cookbook!
Sylvia likes the results of most of my healthy baking binges, but all the cakes, muffins and biscuits/cookies are losing their "treat" status due to the sheer volume I make! Ah well, a kid (and a mum) could have worse problems...
Love your lunchbox treats and the lunchbox - that butterfly bowl is cute. I am baking nut free for lunchboxes too and miss having nuts in the mix - so many fave treats have nuts in them - we are baking with lots of oats - and they disappear so quickly. The choc chip cookies look great but use a lot of maple syrup - do you buy it in bulk or just buy the 250ml bottles that I usually see it in?
ReplyDeleteThanks Johanna! I have to keep reminding myself not to use nut milks as well... I bake a lot with oats too, and oat flour. The cookies do have a lot of maple syrup, but I often make a half batch. I just buy woolies brand maple as it's the cheapest! Sometimes agave works out being cheaper so I buy that, or rice malt syrup, but I'm not sure how substituting would turn out in these cookies
DeleteIf you ever have any leftovers you are welcome to send them up this way! Sylvia must be the envy of her classmates with all these yummy, homemade things.
ReplyDeleteThanks Theresa! Half the time she would probably prefer something from a packet, but I'm addicted to baking so... :)
DeleteThere are definitely worse problems to have :) I bet your neighbours love you too! I also love baking and take any excuse to do so, but confess that a lot of my products get eaten by me. I should befriend the neighbours!
ReplyDeleteHi Kari- of course the cook should consume the majority of food, especially sweet foods, and taste as much of the batter as possible without feeling ill :) we need to make sure it tastes right, no matter that there's not much left for anyone else to sample!
DeleteThose lunches look way nicer than anything I had at school - Sylvia is really lucky! That banana bread looks particularly nice. I'd not heard of the blog it's from - another one to add to my reading list!
ReplyDeleteThanks Joey! Sylvia is pretty blasé about her lunches- oh yes a flower shaped sandwich again :) but she eats most of it so I'm happy!
DeleteThis is the one thing I worry about when I think about having my own children. As an early childhood educator (and qualified kindergarten teacher in 6 months, yay!) I am well aware of the need for nut-free and seed-free lunches and snacks. I know that I'm probably being ridiculous but I worry that my children won't get enough protein! But even as I say that I know how silly it sounds when there's plenty of beans, wholemeal bread, hommus etc to be eaten... I'm sure I'll calm down when I actually have children and I'll wonder why I was ever so worried about it!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'll come up with some creative lunches when the time comes! And congrats on nearly being qualified teacher :)
ReplyDelete