Having entered the time of year where unpredictable weather means weekends can see families holed up in the house for hours on end, I thought it appropriate to offer some refuge in the kitchen. This week I bring two baking recipes that you can safely oversee with a cup of tea or coffee. The idea is to allow the children to let loose and burn off any cabin fever, and hopefully not the dishes. As a child I was fortunate to have had an interest in cooking, and as a result I was constantly working away at different recipes for the family to taste. Some were eaten gladly, some with a sympathetic smile before my mum would produce an edible dinner to fill the gap.
The point is that I was encouraged to keep pursuing the interest, regardless of the result. This has stood me in good stead, and now my mum gets to critique my work from the safe distance of the pages of The Irish Times as opposed to around the family kitchen table. Baking is an exact science, requiring attention to detail and organisation: two good life skills for young people to learn. They may not all go on to become bakers, but perhaps the skills will be used elsewhere in the future. With a bit of luck, they will also learn to keep the kitchen clean.
The first recipe is a classic: cupcakes. There are two keys to success here: the creaming of the sugar and butter; and the quantity of the mix in each paper cup. The aim is to achieve a nice flat top that can hold the buttercream. The buttercream is a simple mix for topping. You can use a piping bag and a nozzle to add some artistic creativity to the project. I’ve used a little vanilla pod to decorate but feel free to go crazy with hundreds-and-thousands sprinkles, seasonal fruit or even chocolate chips.
The second recipe is inspired by the iconic jammy dodger biscuit, involving two layers of biscuit dough glued together with jam. The fun part involves trying to make a heart-shaped hole in the top layer. You can of course buy a small heart-shaped cutter, but we attempted the ones here with a knife – a pretty decent job, if you ask me. In any case, this type of baking is a fun and time-consuming project that can bring everyone together on a rainy day. It should result in some tasty bites too.
