I’m going to let you in on a little tip that’s been making my life a lot easier lately.
When school went back this year I was in a very bad habit of purchasing snacks to put in the kids lunchboxes. I don’t have anything against purchased snacks, we eat them all the time. But I did feel a bit guilty when I was putting up to three purchased, packaged snacks in their lunches every day.
Of course, the kids loved it! But I love cooking, I love to bake and I love sending them off with something that I’ve made especially for them.
There were a few problems…
1. I’d make a batch of cookies/cake/slice and they would run out faster than they should have so I’d find myself needing to bake more and more to keep up with the hungry tummies.
2. We would quickly get over the baked goods and stop eating them and end up throwing half of the batch in the rubbish.
3. I would eat WAY too many and didn’t like them sitting on the bench tempting me 24/7!
So, I came up with a very simple solution which is solving all of the problems – BATCH COOKING.
It saves my hide (in more ways than one) every day. Now when I am baking something, I make sure I cook a double batch. Keep enough out on the bench to last only a couple of days and throw the rest into a big snap-lock bag and put them in the freezer – easy! I started with a couple of different biscuit varieties and make sure that I bake another batch when they are getting lowish. It’s great having a variety in the freezer so that the kids don’t get sick of the same thing every day and keeping them in the freezer means that I’m not even a tiny bit tempted to eat them.
If you’re feeling a bit frazzled and spending too much money on packaged snacks, then do some batch cooking – you’ll feel happy every morning when you’re doing the school lunch making rush and dive into the freezer instead of the pantry for snacks. Here are a few good recipes to get you started, I’ll share more as I make them and experiment with freezing!
(Post-edit…I’ve been freezing my biscuits AFTER cooking/icing so all I have to do is pull exactly what I need from the freezer and pop them into lunchboxes. They defrost by morning tea time and haven’t had any issues with them going soggy or soft yet!)
For biscuits
85g butter
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
For icing
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
20g butter, melted
2 Tbs boiling water
Combine butter, honey and sugar in a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring for 3 to 4 minutes or until butter has melted. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes. Transfer to large bowl.
Sift flour, bicarb, mixed spice and cinnamon over butter mixture. Stir until well combined. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead for 1 minute or until smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Roll 2 level teaspoons of mixture into balls and place on baking paper-lined trays, 3cm apart. Flatten slightly.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden and just firm to touch. Cool on trays for 5 minutes. Cool and spread with icing.
To make icing:
Sift icing sugar into bowl. Stir in butter and water until icing is a smooth, spreadable consistency. Add more water if necessary.
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup diced dried apricots
1/2 cup sultanas
150g butter, chopped
2 Tbs golden syrup
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Combine flour, oats, sugar, apricots and sultanas in a large bowl.
Combine butter, syrup, bicarb and 1 Tbs cold water in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring for 3-4 minutes or until butter has melted.
Carefully add butter mixture to oat mixture. Stir until well combined.
Place level tablespoons of mixture on trays, allowing room for spreading.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden and just firm to touch.
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup coconut
1 cup plain flour
2/3 cup raw sugar
125g butter, chopped
2 Tbs golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g white chocolate, melted
100g milk chocolate, melted
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Combine oats, coconut, flour and sugar in a large bowl.
Place butter, syrup and 2 Tbs cold water in a saucepan. Stir for 3-4 minutes over medium heat or until butter has melted. Remove from heat and stir in bicarb.
Stir butter mixture into oat mixture.
Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls. Place on trays, 3cm apart. Use a fork to flatten slightly.
Bake for 15-16 minutes or until golden. Cool.
Take melted white and milk chocolate and drizzle over biscuits. Allow chocolate to set.
