9 Easy Cakes to Make

While planning my toddler’s birthday party, we Googled for B-cakes ideas.

I’m what you might call a “kitchen challanged”mom.

Usually I end up asking my sister-in-law to bake a cake for me…

This year I decided to give a fight:

My daughter and I googled endlessely, looking for the coolest easy cakes to make.

I was sure that the coolest cakes are NEVER easy

…well that turned to be a surprise!

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Childhood memories and Honey Joys

I am facing this unique issue of having kids who love to cook, but don’t like to eat. For them It’s a none issue, they are cooking and mummy is eating, how nice is that?

I just run out of creative ideas today (about what to feed them, not me), when I stumbled across the site http://www.kidspot.com.au,  and was immediately kicked through a time machine right back to my early childhood.

Unbelievably easy to make, and fun to eat.

Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

• 90g butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 4 cups Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 150°C.

Line 24 hole patty pan with paper cases.

Melt butter, sugar and honey together in a saucepan until frothy.

Add Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and mix well.

Working quickly spoon into paper patty cases.

Bake in a slow oven 150°C for 10 minutes.

Cool.

Notes

• Sprinkle a few crushed peanuts over the top if nut allergy isn’t a problem.
• This recipe was created by Kellogg’s nutritionists.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

When you start a family at a relatively late age (according to my mom at least), you should find a good reason for doing so (for disappointing her I mean. Not that she ever dreamed about becoming a young grandma, only issue is that there is time and place for everything, and please don’t interfere with culture expectations).

And so, I found a good reason for waiting too much. How often do you find a man who, in addition to being perfect, just loves to cook? That’s worth waiting for! Mom’s happy too.

I didn’t consider at that time, that a few years later I will have to fight for NOT having my 3 kids bake – fight – bake altogether in one small kitchen. I mean, come on, he has other great genes as well, you don’t all have to become small chefs! On the other hand, I can’t say no to a cheese cake, a chocolate cake and strawberry covered with chocolate, served to me all at once!

This is not a food blog, but I can’t hide these simple strawberries recipes from you, especially since they are simple enough to have 4 – 8 years old children messing around them without you having to interfere, a good chance for some quality time for yourself.

Another advantage of easy recipes, is that kids are always happy to cook instead of play with any electronic device. And the outcome is great. fattening as well, that’s a subject for another post.

Just don’t forget to remind them to clean after themselves please, a habit that would save you a lot of time and energy at a later age…

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Ingredients:

250 gr. large and especially fresh strawberries with leaves

150 gr. bitter chocolate

1 Tablespoon of oil

Instructions:

1.  Wash the strawberries thoroughly, do not take apart the green leaves. Place at each upper side of the strawberry a wooden toothpick.

2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water, or in a microwave safe bowl (kids version), while stirring. When melted completely, add the oil and continue stirring for 2 minutes.

3. Dip each strawberry in the chocolate up to 2/3 of length,  and place it nicely on a serving plate. This is the part when the kids are occupied for 20 minutes at least.

4. Cool the strawberries for 2 hours at least. The chocolate cover should be hard and crispy.

Now, if you’re a strawberry freak like me, no better idea than to take the next step to heaven, and have the kids prepare a 15 minutes strawberry jam. (There is a slight preliminary preparation for that though)

Strawberry Jam

please consider that a good jam should be made of relatively  mature fruit, at the stage that they are still worthy of eating.

Ingredients:

500 gr. clean strawberries, no leaves

300 gr. sugar

Lemon juice made of 2 small lemons

1 spoon of vanilla essence

Green apple core

Chocolate covered strawberries – Instructions:

(the lemon and the apple core are sources of pectin, a natural material in fruits that helps thicken the jam. It is added because in strawberries there is less pectin than exists in other fruit such as oranges, lemon, apples etc.)

1. Put all the above without the apple core in a medium bowl, cover and keep in the freege for a night. The sugar will melt and become a syrup, and therefore it is recommended to stir once or twice to verify that the sugar melts completelyץ

2. Put a small plate in the freezer. It will be helpful later on.

3. Move the bowl content to a deep cooking pot (better a deep one because the sugar bubbles and climbs up during the cooking). Add the apple core, and boil on a big flame for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.

4. To check if the jam is ready, take out the frozen plate from the freezer. Drip some jam on it and let it cool. Place a finger at the middle of the mixture and move it a bit, if it’s stable and not liquid it’s ready.

In case the jam is still liquid, lower the flame and continue cooking for 5 minutes, and repeat the finger inspection.

6. Take out the apple core, put the jam in a sterilized jar, close it and keep cold.

Bon Apetit!