recipe of the week, yep, I'm resurrecting it.

well, here's one to whet your appetite.

Not too sure about this, but I would be curious if any one would actually cook it. If I was a blogger who truly was committed to the craft of blogging, I would make every gosh darn, disgusting recipe in this book.

Sick day : (

So, no kinder today, little E had croup last night and a pretty horrendous cough today. So what to do?
 I know she loves play doh, and we've made our own loads of times, but today I thought....we'll do salt dough, and  bake it...make decorations...she can pretty much do it all herself. No kinder, but still doing learning activities.
So here's the recipe, if you'd like to try....your 4 year old can do it.

Get a big bowl
2 cups of plain flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water

also you can add, but not necessary for it to work.
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, makes kneading easier- we added this
1 tablespoon of lemon juice, makes it harder when it dries
1 tablespoon of wallpaper paste, makes it more elastic while shaping...not kid friendly

NEXT
Put the flour, salt and any of the optional ingredients into the bowl, and slowly add the water while stirring. ( E just put all the water in at once, and it didn't make any difference)...
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, to make it smooth, if it's too dry, add a little water. Too sticky, knead in a bit more flour.
It was here that we divided up the dough and made different colours. Did a bit more kneading.

THEN
Make your shapes, we used cutters and laid the pieces onto baking paper. If your making complicated forms, I suggest you work directly onto the baking paper on a baking dish...so you don't wreck your work having to move it. If you want to hang decorations, don't forget to put a hole in the top, to thread a string through.

DRY
We dried our pieces in the oven on the lowest temp our oven would go for quite a long time...maybe about 1-2 hours or so. I could smell the toasty-ness and took them out.
Or if you're in warm climates you could just put your work in a warm dry place for at least 48 hours.

WHEN
your work is dry, you can vanish it with PVA, or paint it, then varnish it....or pop a bit of PVA on it and roll it in glitter...whatever takes your fancy.....

recipe credit to Ancient Nile's  ancient Nile Article Salt Dough: a quick introduction
www.ancientnile.co.uk/saltdough

cooking in the oven

Yummy and easy to make

I must tell about the easiest, and most yummy bread product I made on Monday.

This is perfect for kiddies (to eat, and help make), and to accompany soups and casserole-y type stuff.

You, could start this at about 4pm and they would be on the table for an early Winters' tea.

We shall call this....mmm 

spiral scroll rolls

You will need :
1 teasp dry yeast
pinch sugar
2/3 cup of lukewarm water
2 cups of good bread flour ( '00') is good
1/2 of salt
1/4 cup of olive oil

Then what ever you want inside....
We used:
Tomato paste
sliced ham
grated cheese

To make

get a big mixing bowl

Turn on the oven to about 200 degrees C or 400 F

*tip in the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, making sure the salt is on the other side from the yeast, pour in the lukewarm water and oil. Combine with a spoon, to begin with. Then abandon the spoon, take off your rings and get amongst it.

Knead...I use my hands, never the dough hook of a mixer, or a bread machine. If you know how to do this, go for it. Knead for as long as you can, no less than 5mins, the longer the better. You know when it's done by the amount of spring back there is when you press your thumb in it.

Make it into a tidy ball, spray/grease a bowl, place the dough in it, cover with a clean, damp tea towel. And find a warm, draft free place to put it for about 1/2 hour. I put mine on top of the stove while the oven is
 warming up.

When the dough has risen a bit...don't be alarmed if it doesn't look very impressive. It will be delicious.


Knead the dough a bit more on a lightly floured surface.

get a rolling pin out, roll out the dough until it's about 1/2 to 1 cm thick

get your ingredients that you want. In our instance - spread the tomato paste, pizza style, lay the ham out, cover with cheese

Now, I think this is the fun part. Roll up the ingredients, do this so there is no looseness in the roll.
You should have a dough sausage shape now.

Cut with a sharp knife, slices about 2cms thick, and place onto a lightly floured tray/dish. It looks great if you place them next to each other, like a flower.

Whack them in the oven for about 40mins, check then every 5ish minutes after that to get them just the right amount of golden for you.

When they're ready, place the rolls (still all joined) on to a wire rack to cool for a few minutes, then serve while still warm with whatever warming goodies you have...or just by themselves cut through with a big blob of butter. 

Yum.

Please try this, it's so easy, don't be afraid of the yeast!

Enjoy.