Easy Lunchbox Ideas {Cheesy Vegemite Scrolls}

                 

Hello again,

Here in Perth we are heading back into the second term of school. I hear a resounding hallelujah! For me it hasn't been so bad. 

Hubby took a week of holidays so with him being FIFO that's given us 3 whole weeks of quality family time. 

It's been great we've really taken some serious thought about giving each other time out. Both of us really needed some R&R away to just be and not have to worry about anyone but ourselves. 

I think it's important to have some time to be selfish once in a while. It's important for your sanity. 

Now we are getting back into the mindset of going back to work and school and I was asked by a friend (Hi Brookie!) to do something easy, and cheap for the lunchbox. 

Miss 5 goes to a crunch and sip school (you can find out what that is here) so we are limited as to what we can send to school in the way of baked goods.

These Cheesy Vegemite Scrolls tick all the boxes and I've been making them for so long I think my recipe stands up to the ones you can buy from the bakery.

Yesterday whilst out running a few errands I got the familiar "I'm hungry" from my girls (they act like have never been fed the minute we leave the house).

 I wasn't prepared because A)They'd just had morning tea and B) We were only going to be out for half an hour. 

So I ducked over to the Baker's Delight at our local Mall and picked up a pack of 4 mini Cheesymite Scrolls. The kids were happy and excited and so pleased to get a bought treat and I was happy for them until the lovely cashier rang up my total.... $6.00!! 

Are you effing kidding me? Was my internal reaction. My outward response was a bit different and I parted with my $6.00 thinking, I could have put that money in my savings bottle (I'll fill you in on that another time).

So I set myself a challenge, lets take $6.00 and figure out how many I can make at home. 

Okay so I don't buy fancy flour and I always have a can of yeast in my fridge so taking $6 worth of ingredients out of what I already had was easy. If you have to go out and buy flour, yeast, cheese, vegemite etc it will obviously cost you more. 

                           

I buy Coles brand flour, I pay under $2 for 2kg of all purpose and Self Raising. It's around $1.50 for a kg of Wholewheat flour. 

The Cheese I buy is Coon Tasty Cheese and that I buy in a block for around $9 less if it's on sale.

I buy a 280g Can of Lowan whole foods yeast for around $4 and it lasts forever stored in the fridge. You can get sachets for cheaper but in the long run it costs alot more. 

Vegemite is probably the most expensive ingredient and you don't use alot around 2 Tablespoons. 

Really you can't get more budget than this. You can switch up the cheese and find a cheaper brand and you can switch up the flour and use bread flour or Gluten free flour like Orgran for example. You can also use this dough as a deep dish pizza base, for other types of scrolls including sweet and I like making chunky bread sticks to accompany soup. 

It's very versatile. 

                                         

                               

                               

So you can use your bread maker, kitchen aid or even your food processor it it has a large enough bowl.

I'm going to be using my bread maker.

Lets get started. 

{Ingredients : makes 12} 
1 cup of warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons active Dry Yeast
1 Tablespoon of honey (you can use sugar)
2 teaspoons of salt 
2 Tablespoons of Olive oil. (If you don't have olive oil, you can use rice bran, canola or sunflower as a substitute. Please don't use vegetable oil as it is usually a blend of oils including uncertified palm oil.)
2 cups of Bread flour or all purpose flour and 1 tablespoon of bread improver
1 Cup of wholewheat or spelt flour
(+ extra flour if you are kneading by hand)
2-3 Tablespoons Vegemite
1 cup cheddar cheese grated

{Method: Bread maker}
Add ingredients in this order- yeast, salt, flour, bread improver (if adding), honey,oil and water.

                     

Set machine to pizza setting and let it complete the cycle.

My machine takes 45 on a pizza cycle which includes all the kneading and rising. 
{Method: Stand Mixer with dough hook}

In the bowl add your water, yeast and honey. Allow the yeast to activate. you will know that this has happened when the yeast mix has a foamy top.Mix all your dry ingredients together. 
Add the oil to the bowl of the mixer and begin mixing on a low speed.
Slowly add in the dry ingredient mix when combined turn up the speed on your mixer and knead the dough for a further 5 minutes. The dough should come away from the sides of the bowl. 
Remove the bowl from the mixer and the hook from the dough. Cover with cling film and allow it to double in size.
At this stage you will knock the air out of the dough and continue on with the next steps.

                                      

Remove dough from the machine / mixer and on a floured surface roll out a large rectangle. 

I picked up this small jar of Vegemite from Woolworths for a little over $4.00

                       

spread vegemite over the entire base, being as light or heavy handed as you would like. Sprinkle 3/4 cup of cheese over the base and then with the long side of the rectangle facing you, roll the dough away from yourself keeping it as tight as possible.
Once you have a long log, push the 2 ends in so they are flat. Cut as many 1 inch rounds as the dough allows and place them slightly apart on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Cover lightly with a piece of cling film and allow to rise again they should increase by at least half again. Placing in a warm place will help with the rising process (Mine are on the stove top of my preheating oven). 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 
Once your scrolls have risen sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake for 25 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown and the dough springs back when you poke it. 

                   

{Simple variations}
Sun-dried tomato pesto or Basil Pesto are great replacements for Vegemite. 
Spread the dough with garlic butter mix (simply 1/2 cup of butter a tablespoon of garlic and a teaspoon of chopped parsley mixed together) either with or without cheese.
Pizza sauce with any of your favourite pizza toppings such as capsicum, onion, pineapple, pepperoni, diced ham or bacon etc to make delicious pizza scrolls or simply use this dough to make pizza bases.
To make a sweet variation you can make a mixture of brown sugar, butter and cinnamon to make cinnamon scrolls top with a glaze.
Add your favourite jam to the centre, or nutella and peanut butter. 
You are limited to your imagination.

This recipe is a favourite in my house, either needing to be consumed on the same day or frozen separately in sandwich bags and consumed within 3 months.

This dough can easily make 2 large pizza bases and you can store the unbaked dough in the freezer in ziplock bags with all the air pressed out of them for around 3 months also, defrost in the fridge overnight.  

Enjoy the simplicity of this recipe and don't be afraid to change it up.

Until next time......
Stacey xx

P.S. Not an Aussie? Find out what Vegemite is here.

Happy Easter! {Carrot sugar cookies}

Well the Easter long weekend is coming to an end, we've survived the sugar high and chocolate meltdowns.

We've endured a breakout of nits and an entire weekend of Miss 3 waking up screaming all night long. 

We've celebrated with our families and our friends (all the while NOT passing on headlice thank goodness).

It's been a lovely weekend. 

I have a very strong opinion on the use of non-certified Palm oil and as a main ingredient in so many Easter Eggs and Easter chocolate we decided not to buy any this year. 

(The Easter Bunny did drop of a Cadbury Freddo Frog Casket to each of our children. Palm oil free of course.) 

So what do you make instead? 

What will the kids love? Something sweet  and something cute - that's what!! 

What does the Easter bunny sustain himself with whilst delivering all of those Easter goodies? 
Carrots?! Did you say Carrots?!

                                  

{Sugar Cookie Dough : Montreal Confections} 

Ingredients
4 Cups of Regular Granulated Sugar
1 Pound of Butter (454 grams) 
2 Tablespoons Vanilla 
4 Eggs
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
7 Cups All Purpose flour 


Method
In your mixer cream butter and sugar together. 
Add Eggs one at a time until combined.
Add Vanilla.
In a large bowl measure and sift the flour and baking powder. 
Slowly add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until a dough forms.

Split dough into two, shape into discs and wrap and refrigerate the dough for half an hour.

Flour your bench and rolling pin.
Roll out dough to 0.5 cm thickness and using a floured cutter cut out your shapes. 
Place the shapes on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and freeze for a half an hour. 
Bake straight from the freezer for 10- 15 minutes depending on your oven. 

{As you can see this recipe makes a lot, you can halve the recipe. It was way too big for my mixer and I made a huge mess}.

{Tips to remember: Use butter at room temperature, use a bench mixer with a large bowl or a large bowl with a hand mixer. This mixture make A LOT of cookies. I'm not kidding. You can freeze the cookies unbaked for a few weeks. Your Dough may be slightly sticky but you are using flour to roll out and the dough will absorb some of the flour.}

{Cutting out the Carrot Shapes.}

{Spacing the shapes out as they will spread a little when baking}

{Royal Icing}  

Ingredients
8 Tablespoons of water
3 Tablespoons of Meringue Power (I used Pavlova Magic, Yes the one in the cute plastic Egg) 
Icing sugar
Lemon juice.

Method
In a large bowl add your water and meringue powder. Using a whisk mix these together until they a frothy. Add Icing Sugar, whisking until you have a thick paste. There is no measured amount, just keep adding until its thick and glossy.

Separate some of your mixture into 2 bowls add Orange gel paste to one and Green Gel paste into the other. You will need to make the icing into 15 second consistency. To do this you will need to add lemon juice drop by drop mixing until you have a smooth consistency that when you run a spoon through it settles back into a flat top after you've counted to 15 seconds.
I hope that makes sense. I will post a link to a youtube video that I like that gives a great tutorial on 15 second Royal icing here.
One you have gotten your colour and consistency right you are ready to use it on cooled cookies. I use disposable piping bags with a coupler and a number 2 tip for this project.

{If you look closely you will see I've use elastic bands to close the bags and sticky tape over the tip.}

On your cookie pipe a border in orange and flood immediately, using a toothpick you can help spread the icing and smooth it out.

{You can see I've outlined and flooded the cookie, at this point I used a toothpick to spread the icing.}

 Gently shake your cookie to get a smooth result.

{Keep the bottom of the cookie touching your work surface and gently and
quickly shake the cookie to smooth out the surface.}

 Let this crust for 20 minutes, you will see that the icing has crusted because it will lose some of it's sheen. You will need to let it crust before moving on to the green because you do not want the colours to run into one another. 
Using the same technique pipe a border and flood with the green icing. You will need to wait 12-24 hours before packaging and the cookies will set best if left out uncovered in the open air.

{I made so many of these little suckers. They tasted really good too!} 

This was my first time icing cookies like this. 
The recipe I used was from Montreal Confections, I absolutely love her YouTube channel and blog and I was inspired to try something simple like these carrots and really learnt the basics of how to do it from watching the videos. 
It was alot of fun, but it was time consuming and I still have alot of frozen shapes cut out waiting to be baked another day. Next time I do something like this I will do it using my Greek Yoghurt Sugar Cookie Recipe that you can find here. It tastes a lot nicer and even though the lemon juice helps cuts the sweetness of the icing I think that it would really help to use a less sweet dough recipe.

I hope that I have kind of simplified things for you so you can achieve a great looking decorated sugar cookie. It's not something that I see often in Australia but I bet they would look effective on a Party table and I will be looking for excuses to make them again and again for all occasions. 
So do have a go and send me pictures of your results I would love to see them. 
You can email me at staceytimms@gmail.com.

Until next time....
Stacey xx 

{Simple Sorbet : Icy Poles}

Ahoy!

A couple of days ago I made strawberry and pear purée for Miss 3 who is going through a non-eating stage. 

I have these adorable reusable food pouches I purchased through Little Mashies. 

I filled 7 of these 100ml pouches with this purée and I was sure she would love them. I have been buying the supermarket equivalent which are $1.30 each and are only 70mls. 

But after all my effort, poaching, purreeing, and filling, Miss 3 turned her nose up at them and continued with her diet of canned peaches and Greek yoghurt.

Miss 5 decided they weren't her cup of tea either. So what was I supposed to do with all this purée? 

I had an idea! A little while back we bought the girls a fruit icy pole from a store named "Scoops". They came in the cutest reusable cow molds which you get to keep when you buy the icy pole. Yay! 

Cutest little cow molds around.

So I armed myself with all the pieces and my "Little Mashies" pouches. 

www.littlemashies.com  www.facebook.com/littlemashieshome

I filled the mold almost all the way to the top using my Little Mashies Food Pouch to get into all the little corners.  

Leaving a little bit of space to put the back on.

The back clicks into place easily and firmly and once it's on the thick puree can't leak out. A thinner liquid would if you held the mold upright.

All filled and ready to go into the freezer overnight.

Miss 3 oblivious to the fact that she is indeed eating the fruit puree I made her!
Delicious! One happy Mamma, no wastage here.

Until Next time.... Stacey xx

{Buttercream Frosting : 101}

{Buttercream : 101} 

Buttercream frosting is sometimes difficult to get right and I'll let you in on a secret, you need to beat the crap out of it! Ha ha! I'm not kidding. 

The secret to a good buttercream frosting is whipping it with your hand mixer or stand mixer for a long time. 

For 12 cupcakes frosted high like these or a layer cake you will need:

250 grams butter softened

2 & 1/2 cups icing (powdered or confectioners sugar) sifted

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2-3 TB milk 

Gel colours (I used 3 drops of americolor tulip red and 2 drops of Wilton orange to achieve this coral colour) 

Americolor Gel available at Spotlight & Wilton available at Kitchen Warehouse

                         

So the method to this madness is as follows..... 

In your stand mixer add the softened butter and mix on high for 5 minutes until it turns light and fluffy. It really is important to give your butter the time to turn that pale colour to achieve the best results. 

Turn your mixer down to a slower speed and add your sugar a small amount at a time and once it's all in turn up the speed. 

Add the vanilla 

At this stage you will have a very thick consistency this is when you add the milk Tablespoon at a time until you have the desired consistency. 

Add in your colours at this stage and whip for a further 2 minutes scraping the sides and bottom as you go. 

                       

I used a large open star tip and used the 2 and a half swirl icecream technique. 

(Mostly because it's the only technique I've actually mastered lol) 

This buttercream will stay fresh in the fridge for a week. You will need to bring it to room temp and stir before using. 

Also, freezes for up to 3 months and will also need to be defrosted and brought to room temp and stirred. 

                    

The colour didn't come out in the pictures unfortunately but they are a lovely light coral colour. 

So that is a super easy buttercream frosting recipe. To make it into a lovely rich chocolate butter cream add in 1/4 cup cocoa and 1/4 cup of melted dark chocolate. 

Nothing left to do now but sit back with a cuppa and a good read.  

                      

Until next time, 

Stacey xx