Baby flapjacks

I I finally had a) the baby napping solidly enough and b) the energy to try baking something new! As a household we've always had a pretty healthy diet, so we're not making major adjustments now our son in on solids, but it did make me realise that while a biscuit when you're peckish isn't so bad for an adult who should know better, it's not really desirable for a baby who doesn't know better! Our son eats enough fruit at each meal time to keep Dole in business for many years to come, so I scoured the offerings of Pinterest for something a little different he could have for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Lo and behold, the sugar free baby flapjack has been baking in our oven.

This is the original recipe, but please carry on reading to find out how I found it and what my end result was: http://www.myfussyeater.com/sugar-free-flapjacks-for-baby-led-weaning/

The ingredients are (and I used cup measurements just because they were available, though my scales were handy and they definitely didn't match the weights to cups conversion on the original recipe):

2 cups rolled oats, ground up a bit in the food processor

1 tbsp desiccated coconut

1/3 cup butter, melted (you can use coconut oil but mine is for my hair!) - also, be careful if melting it in the microwave, I hadn't done it before and have ended up with a butter-coated microwave interior to clean

3 dates, pitted

1 & 1/2 bananas

4 tbsp orange or apple juice (I had orange open)

1. Mix the processed oats and coconut together in a large bowl

2. Put the other ingredients into a blender / food processor and blitz till they're paste-like, or at least combined and not too lumpy

3. Pour the wet paste into the dry mix and thoroughly combine

4. Line a tray with parchment (I used Fry Light to grease my tray and help the parchment stick)

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tray, then pat it down tightly with a spoon to make it nice and dense

I had preheated the oven to 170 Celsius (actually 150 due to mine being fan). When I do this again I'm going to put it at at least 170 fan, if not 180, to encourage a bit more colour and less drying out. 

The original recipe says to bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden, but mine were in for much longer... Maybe 40 minutes. Hence the idea about upping the temperature next time. 

This recipe should make 8 to 16 bars depending on how greedy you are. I'm actually giving my son no more than half a 16th of the total at a time (a 32nd??!?) because I made them quite thin but they're pretty wide. You can just slice them into however many you want once they're a little cool.

I had licked the spoon as I out the tray in the oven and really enjoyed the taste. I then shared a bit with my son after they'd cooled a little, and I have to say, neither of us were disgusted at these healthy little bars! Normally with healthy versions or sugar-free things I usually think I'll just make the sugared version and eat less, but these are pretty good. My husband tried one and he won't be stealing them; they're not quite up to his sweet tooth requirements, but I think we'll happily make our way through the remaining 30 32nds! 

The original recipe says they can be frozen in parchment and defrosted with 30 mins notice, this excites me quite a lot but I've run out of parchment so they will be plastic-tubbed until I can get some more parchment tomorrow! 

PB&J Bars

This recipe for Peanut Butter and Jelly bars is courtesy of The Boy Who Bakes, Edd Kimber. I tried it, and it works - a treat! The photos are of my attempt at his fab recipe!

450g Plain Flour

300g Unsalted Butter

150g Caster Sugar

1/4 tsp salt

150g smooth peanut butter

250g jam (choice up to you) (I used strawberry because it was on offer!)

1. Press a piece of foil into the base and up the sides of a 9×13 baking pan. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.

2. Place the flour, butter, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade and pulse until the ingredients form a dough. (I used my Braun Multiquick Handblender with the big jug attachment, and it worked well).

3. Tip the dough out onto the worksurface and lightly knead until it becomes uniform. Remove a third of the dough and wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate until needed. Press the remaining dough evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 mins or until lightly golden around the edges. leave to cool for 20 mins.

4. Spread the peanut butter evenly on the cooled base then repeat with the jam. Remove the third of dough from the fridge and crumble into pieces and scatter evenly over the jam. Bake for a further 25-30 mins or until the crumbled dough starts to colour a little bit. Cool completely before cutting into 12 large squares.

Here's Edd's website if you want to try more of his lovely recipes.