Do I bake too many cakes for my kids?

[IlanaK]

I bake at least twice a week: cakes usually, or oatbar type things. The cakes always have lots of fruit in or veg (apple, courgette, butternut squash, dried fruit) but obviously also have sugar in too.

The reason I bake is because my kids eat snacks twice a day. Once is always fruit, but the other is usually cake or biscuit type things. Shop bought biscuits are not at all filling. The home baked stuff seems to go further for them.

But.....sometimes I wonder if its not that healthy for them to eat so much cake and stuff. I am not sure what I would replace it with though! So, what do you all do?

Yikes! Correction

Should have typed 130 degrees celsius!! (I think the 250 was fahrenheit)

Phew

I do the same minus the veg and fruit

I can't understand how the Nigella recipe doesn't just crumble to bits.

It's fine if you let it cool enough, mimizan. The first couple that I chisel out tend to crumble a wee bit but after that it is very easy to slide a fish slice underneath + lift them out intact. Tis the stickiness of the condensed milk I think...

I bake all the time too, I find it relaxing after a stressful day at work to crash around with cake tins!

Also I like baking with the kids - DD is now 9 and whipped up chocolate cakes yesterday without supervision apart from the oven bit because she has been trained from an early age!! DS said that his friends at school were all drooling over his chocolate brownie (minus the nuts) that he had in his packed lunch one day last week.

I'm not keen on shop bought stuff and have some recipes that never fail so I can whip up snacks in no time. I prefer my children to eat stuff I've made with butter, eggs, flour and sugar and no artificial anything.

Moderation is the key with cakes and I find eating about 6 is usually enough for each cup of coffee!!!

My friend thinks I'm (her words) "supermum" because I bake but it's not difficult - a few ingredients, a bowl and a wooden spoon et voila!

Go forth and bake

Lucky kids!
I think anything you have baked is going to be much, much healthier than shop-bought cakes and biscuits.
If you are concerned about sugar, you can substitute honey, apple concentrate or maple syrup in lots of things: flapjack and carrot cake for example. Or just not use very much.

I often halve the sugar I use in recipes like brownies and flapjacks - you can never tell. Also use brown sugar mostly, creates more chewy cookies I find.

Good tip kbear. Will try that tommorrow when I make a batch of flapjacks. Yum.

feel happpily reassured by this thread - i also love to bake and "crash around with tins" as Kbear says but know hardly anyone in RL who does any baking at all and i always wonder if i am slowly but surely hardening the arteries of my family (dh and ds skinny are rakes and i am, umm, middling..) but AMEN those who say sugar and everything else in homebaked stuff is better than sweetners and other crap in shop cakes!! yes yes, home baking is the way to go..
does anyone else just love sitting and reading baking recipe books??

i bake all the time too and as expat said, mine certainly are not as healthy as yours.

I bake pancakes, scones, brownies, muffins, cupcakes, fairy cakes, cookies...

My toddlers are good eaters and constantly hungry. I make sure they eat fruit and veg every day but if they are hungry for something sweet I would rather they had a home baked something than bought.

I also avoid artificial sweetners, think they are really nasty!

Despite their constant eating my toddlers are v. thin- it's just me that's not!

The other reason I do so much baking is that with all this wind and rain and 3 children under 4, it's a fun activity to pass the time indoors.

Phew! Glad I am not the only one then! Can't do the Nigella recipe as it is not dairy free.

Hi Hoochiemomma - ds is still very difficult. I tried reintroducing both dairy and soy to disasterous effect a few weeks ago. Went on holiday last week and could not get bread that did not have dairy - big problem! He reacted again the other day when I had a bag of nuts and dried fruit - it is definately the dried fruit. I discovered oat cream this weekend though so I am thrilled to be able to have decaf coffee again (can't stand it black) - yippee!

Anyway, back to cooking - I am dabbling in homemade soups for this weather too. Just put a pan of split pea and chiken soup on the cooker. Basically, fried onion, carrot and garlic. Added packet of dried split peas and chopped up cooked chicken from tonight's roast. Added homemade chicken stock and seasoning. Hope it turns out ok!

I bake alot, mainly because it seems to calm the kids..
if they are bickering over toys or have cabin fever taking them into the kitchen and making cakes / flapjacks / making Jelly etc seems to unite them

Keep baking!!

Oh, it's the BEST remedy for rainy, blowy cold days.

Especially because I use the electric hand mixer and food processor often in baking and the girls love to pour stuff in and push the buttons or hold the mixer.

I even make shortcrust pastry in the food processor.

u bake alot for my charges

MB loves cooking and baking and bakes alot as well so there is almost always some homemade cake / biscuit type thing in the tin.

We also have something out of the tin nearly every day and i wonder to myself if this is ok or not but i conclue it is...

basically my charges eat...

breakfast (cereal)

lunch (sandwich / jack pot / soup etc)
WITH salady veg
THEN a piece of fruit
THEN a yogurt

dinner... a healthy home cooked meal (they eat anything and everything and i love experimenting new recipies on them)
THEN a piece of fruit
sometimes custard or jelly as well
and normally something baked from 'the tin'

i figure that as they have eaten healthily all day (no 'junk' at all) and have consumed their quota of fruit & veg / protein / calcium etc I really dont see why they shouldnt have ONE treat

our current favourite is carrot cake (the recipie in the apple tree farm book) and tanya ramseys apple and banana loaf cake and mummy loves making flapjacks...

generally 'gooey chocolate cakes' are for birthday celebrations only, and iced biscuits are for "occasions" too, Halloween, Easter, Xmas, Valetines, Children in need (pudsey ) and birthday parties

mean I bake a lot with my charges

iiana DD had to do the dairy,wheat,citrus,tomato,chicken,gluten free diet when she was a baby,she had the horrible nutramigen as well,but when she hit 2 she was fine and eats a full diet now,i have to steer her away from strawberries and not lots of dairy cos her eczema plays up,i honestly thougt at the time there would be no end to it,but there was!!

I try to bake twice a week too. I do flapjacks/muffins/suzywong's brownies/anything else I can think of ...
I agree, shop bought things don't fill them up and at least when I bake I know it is just butter/sugar/eggs/flour without all the preservatives/additives/thickeners/e numbers/sweeteners etc etc in them.

I also get a huge amount of satisfaction out of baking - I feel productive, I like the smiles on their faces (I don't eat wheat so I don't eat any of it, apart from flapjacks), and when I bake I feel like I am a good mother. The rest of the time I am on MN or drinking coffee or wine so I am not a good mother then

Baking is fine, as long as there is a balance. IlanaK, I presume your children aren't having lots of biscuits or cakes or puddings at other times of the day, e.g. after meals? If not, one snack of home-made cake is more than fine.

We bake all the time here, but don't tend to snack on the results, they tend to be part of meals. On school days, the children will have a small portion of something home-made in their lunchbox, so for snack when they get home they will rarely have a biscuit or something sweet.

Instead, mine love bread-based snacks. A sandwich or just home-made bread with butter. Or some cinnamon and raisin bread, sometimes toasted, or a few crackers, or other 'different' bread - last week's chocolate and walnut bread was a winner! They find this more filling than just a biscuit anyway.

mmm, i just made mincemeat cookies.

No, they have no deserts excpet after dinner and that is always fruit, or plain yoghurt with some raisins mixed in. They love bread type snacks too, but I am holding off on that until I get a breadmaker in the new year. Then I will definately branch out in that direction.

fairylights - am with you on the reading of cookbooks, I adore doing that! Mmmm... the top quality paper, lovely photography, the booky smell... love it

IlanaK Didn't realise about the dairy-free requirement, I wonder could you substitute the condensed milk with something else? I bet Hoochiemomma knows

Am now desperately fighting the urge to bake!

Don't wait for a breadmaker IlanaK, just go for it! It'll taste better anyway!

Or try home-made scones, if you don't already, they are so quick and easy and are great for a snack. We do plain, sweet and savoury ones.

Ok, I have a batch of butternut squash muffins in the oven right now (smug face here )

Scones sound good and easy, but I am baking under a handicap at the moment. We are living with my mum while refurbishemnts are going on at our flat. She takes full and total control of the kitchen and baking is only ever done by me when she is out.

However, once back in our flat in the new year, there will be no stopping me!