Baking Day

 Wednesday morning was a baking morning at our house.  It was still very damp and cool outside from all the rain on Tuesday so I decided that we should stay inside.  The first thing I made was some homemade playdoh to keep the kids occupied.  Normally their Nana makes playdoh for them, so I called to get her recipe and I was very pleased with how it turned out. 

I wanted to have some healthy snacks on hand that aren't from a package in the pantry.   The first recipe I made was for mudballs.  It is like a homemade granola bar in a ball form.  I substituted almond butter for the peanut butter so Charlotte could enjoy them too.  I also subbed flax seed for the wheat germ because I was out of wheat germ.  They turned out delicious.

After forming the balls I put them in the refrigerator to cool.  You don't have to do that, but it made the mudballs stick together really well and they didn't melt when the kids ate them. 

 Charlotte really loved them! The almond butter blended well with the chocolate and honey and I didn't notice that peanut butter was missing.  I am glad to find some recipes to adapt for her.   

 Trey was excited to eat them because he saw me put in the chocolate chips, but when he got to the middle and started chewing up the seeds inside he decided he didn't want to eat anymore.  I am still proud of him for trying something new. 

 Next we made homemade cheeze-its from a recipe I found on pinterest.  Trey and Charlotte LOVE goldfish crackers and have eaten way too many this summer so I was hoping this would be a good alternative.

I don't have a food processor, and honestly I don't want to have to store one more small appliance, so I just adapted the recipe for my kitchen aid mixer.  I crumbled the dough in the mixer and then used the dough hook as I added water to made the dough into a ball.  Instead of rolling the dough out on a dough mat, I rolled it out directly on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  That way I wouldn't have to try and transfer really thin dough. 

They end crackers were crisp, but the ones in the middle were a bit chewy. It is very hard to make all the dough a uniform thickness.   I have tried a few homemade cheese cracker recipes, but these were by far my favorite and the easiest to make. 

Charlotte devoured them!  Trey didn't want to try them after the mudball incident.  They made a good amount and have lasted for 3 days of snacks.   

 While all this was going on in the kitchen, I had a loaf of bread going in the bread machine.  By lunchtime we had mudballs, crackers and homemade bread to eat. 

 The only way I was able to accomplish any of this was by making the playdoh first.  The kids played with the playdoh all morning and I could watch them from the kitchen and pretend to eat all the play food they made me with their playdoh.