Cheese and Bacon Plait - Baking with Kids

Although it isn't cake, this fits in with my baking with kids theme that I am currently running with. I love pastry, particularly savoury puff pastry dishes. So one lunchtime last week we decided to make a savoury plait. It turned out to be really easy and absolutely DELICIOUS!

We grated some cheese and chopped up some onions, and then rolled out a sheet of puff pastry.

Then, using a sharp knife, we scored the pastry along its length (being careful not to cut right through it) so that it was marked into three sections. 

Starting with the bacon, we put the filling in the middle section and then cut diagonally along the two remaining sections (cutting right through this time).

Using a little beaten egg as 'glue' we then folded a strip over from each side to give the impression the pastry had been plaited.

Finally, we brushed egg over the finished plait and popped it in the oven at approx 180C for half an hour.

There were no left-overs!

American Style Cheesecake - Baking with Kids

...or, if my son had been naming this post, it would be

How to Make a Munchy-Crunchy-Cake

which is what he decided to call the cake half way through making it.

A little while ago I discovered Renee's blog (Kudos Kitchen by Renee) and was particularly intrigued earlier in the week when she posted a recipe for malted Milk Ball Cheesecake. In the UK cheesecake recipes aren't usually cooked, but it seems that American style cheesecakes are a baked delicacy. I love malty flavoured things, so I thought this would be a brilliant recipe to try out with the kids. I've changed it slightly...Europeanised it a little I guess, but hopefully not enough that it's untrue to its origins.

You can see Renee's original recipe here; my recipe is below:

For the base:

choc chip cookies (2 packets - approx 400g total)

white Ovaltine^TM powder (1 tablespoon )

melted butter (85g)

For the filling:

mascarpone cheese, softened to room temp (500 g)

self raising flour (1.5 tablespoons)

Maltesers^TM (a 230g pouch)

white Ovaltine^TM powder (2 tablespoons)

caster sugar (225g)

crème fraiche, at room temperature (100g)

vanilla extract (few drops)

3 large eggs, at room temperature

grated chocolate for topping

Renee's recipe tells you to put the cookies in the food processor & whizz them up, but it's much more fun to put them in a bag, arm your three-year-old with a rolling pin and tell him to whack them to bits. In this photo it looks like he's rolling them but he was actually perfecting a two handed smashing action!!

We then combined the cookie bits with the butter and the Ovaltine^TM powder in the food processor and blitzed them until the mixture started to come together in clumps. We then squished it all down into a 9" baking tin. We popped it in the oven at approx 170C for around ten minutes and then set it aside to cool a little.

Meanwhile, we got on with making the filling. With Mrs B's help we whipped the mascarpone, flour, Ovaltine^TM powder and the sugar into  a lovely creamy mixture. We then added the crème fraiche and vanilla and lightly mixed them in (although there is a certain lack of finesse in a three-year-old controlling the on-off button of a powerful mixer!). 

We then added the eggs one at a time, slowly mixing them well in, before adding the Maltesers^TM. Renee's recipe calls for the balls to be chopped in half...however, the unbridled enthusiasm of my son resulted in the whole pouch being emptied straight in to the bowl and mixed in:

We then poured the mixture into the tin and popped it in the oven at somewhere between 170-180C for an hour. I'm guessing that had we chopped the balls they wouldn't have all floated to the surface...

After an hour it came out looking like this:

and smelling DELICIOUS!!!

Although unplanned, the fact that the Maltesers^TM formed a lovely caramelised layer on top of the smooth creamy-cheesy layer really made this for me, and I think it suits the munch-crunchy-cake title quite well! I think I am definitely a convert to baked cheesecake. It is quite different to what the British would usually call cheesecake, but it is worth the extra time and effort to make it - yum!!   

Chocolate & Date Brownies - Baking with Kids

It's half term this week which means I have the children at home with me. Luckily I don't have any cake orders this week! The boys always show a great deal of interest in my baking, so I thought they would probably enjoy having a go at making brownies and decided to make it our 'project' this morning. So after a bit of a protracted amble down to the village shop (sucessfully fending off the numerous pleas for a 'special treat' - obviously making brownies wasn't a special enough treat in itself!) I managed to install them in the kitchen.

 

It's fitting that the gorgeous little apron and chef's hat set that we have says 'I love Santa' as it seems to be Christmas all year round in our house...after 12 months of trying I still haven't managed to sucessfully remove the Postman Pat Christmas Stories CD that tortures me every morning in the car, and the boys are frequently known to be humming and singing 'Jingle Bells' in the height of summer. The recent snow had them utterly convinced that Father Christmas was going to be putting in a reappearance at any minute because 'It always snows at Christmas!'

This is the recipe we were following:

Unsalted butter (250g/9oz)

Dark chocolate (275g/10oz)

Caster sugar (275g/10oz)

Three large eggs

Vanilla extract (1 tsp)

Plain flour (225g/8oz)

Salt (0.5 tsp)

Chopped dates (a 'handful')

First we melted the chocolate and the butter together and set the mixture aside to cool slightly. In the meantime, we beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla extract together in Mrs B my trusty mixer (named after none other than Mrs Beeton).

Mrs B causes no end of fascination to my eldest - he could spend all day watching things whizz around in there!

 

We kept mixing on a medium speed until the mixture was pale and fluffy. Then we added the slightly cooled chocolate mixture

and mixed it all in. Finally, we stirred in the flour using a metal spoon. We cooked the mixture for about 30 minutes at 180C until it was just set. We left it to cool in the tin for about 10 to 15 minutes and then turned it out onto a cooling rack to finish.

We were all delighted with the end result - despite the concerns of the boys that I was somehow contaminating their creation by insisting upon the addition of the dates!

Of course then, as far as the boys were concerned, it was the best bit - licking out the bowl! And the worst bit for me - the washing up...

 Thankfully he took his hat off first!!!