Holiday treats

Hi! How are your school holidays going, if you're on them?

Here there's been the usual holiday stuff - playdates with friends, hours spent at the park, haircuts, trips to the library, shopping etc, and on my part plenty of avoidance of the much needed toy culling (where do they all come from, do they breed overnight?).

Vanilla cupcakes (Inner Pickle) Shortbread animals Golden syrup scones

Banana bread Honey joys Choc chip cookies

And of course there has been lots of snack preparation and baking, which made me think about compiling a favourite holiday treat list, mainly old favourites. Above are a selection of our old faithfuls (all egg-free of course).

Do you have old favourites or are you an experimenter?

Shortbread animals

My big girl and I made some biscuits together last week when it was actually bearable to have the oven on, unlike the last few days which have been in the high 30c's. When we arrived home from school pick-up yesterday it was 40c (104f)!



Making biscuits is a holiday activity we often do, as it keeps most of us happy and provides more household snacks or something to take on a play date. I find shortbread a good mix for the littlies to cut into shapes and decorate, while being yummy for kids and adults alike. It also seems to handle being rolled and re-rolled quite well, which happens a lot! And it's suitable for egg-allergic people too.

Shortbread

1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/4 tsp salt
225g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer for 1 minute. Add sugar and mix for 2 minutes. Add vanilla to combine and then gently stir in flours and salt til just incorporated (I do this with the mixer on lowest speed).


Then roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper to about 5mm thick. Refrigerate until firm. This will make handling the dough much easier. Take top sheet of baking paper off, cut out the shapes and decorate with chocolate drops or anything else you have on hand. Take off the excess dough and set aside, rather than move the shapes. This helps ensure the shapes don't fall apart. Re-roll the excess dough and use for more shapes, or you can just shape into flattish discs if your precious littlies have had enough!




Slide sheets onto baking trays and bake in 180c oven for about 10 minutes or until light brown.



The cute cookie cutters came from Ikea and we decorated them this time with white chocolate drops.

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Bizarre kid quote of the day:

3 yr old: "Mum, you got more of these" (pointing to my forearm)
me: "They're moles, darling"
3 yr old: "No, not that, the grass. You got more. You gotta cut them."

The 'grass' was hair and the comment came after watching me recently using an epilator (or "tractor" as a friend calls hers) on my legs.