Healthy Breakfast Ideas

Bran Muffin

How many times have you looked at the breakfast cereals in the supermarket and wished that they could be a little more inspiring?  So many are sugar coated, chocolate flavoured or designed and marketed so we feel we would do just as well to give our kids a packet of biscuits and a glass of milk on a morning.  Somewhere the importance of a good breakfast has been lost in the cartoon character, sugar coated world of manufactured cereals

Making Time for Breakfast

If your mornings are anything like mine, you will spend them rushing around trying to get the kids ready for school.  You will be making sure the packed lunches are organised, the school bags packed and getting yourself ready for work.  If the thought of doing anything more than pouring cereal into a bowl and adding milk, or dropping a couple of slices of bread into the toaster sounds like too much effort, think again.

Breakfast should set us and our kids up for the day, filling up our energy stores, energising our body and sparking our brains into action, providing us with enough energy to see us through to lunch.  Finding the time to provide an energy rich, vitamin packed, wholesome breakfast takes just a little longer than fixing a bowl of cereal.  So if you need to get up a half an hour earlier, will it kill you?  You can prepare things in advance to save on time in the morning, but after a couple of days of having a hand prepared, homemade breakfast both you and the kids will see a difference.

Homemade Bran Breakfast Muffins

These tasty muffins are just one example of an alternative breakfast.  Served with a fresh fruit smoothie or a glass of pure fruit juice they make a great breakfast, and will save money in the long run as they are much cheaper to make than buying boxes of sugar loaded manufactured cereals.  It literally takes 15 minutes to make this muffin mix and it will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for up to two weeks so you can just bake as much as you need every morning.  Pop them in the oven jump in the shower and they will be ready when you are, plus the house will be filled with the incredible aroma of home baking.  

You will need:

• 240g (100%) stick shaped bran cereal like All Bran
• 100g soft butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 mashed bananas
• 2 beaten eggs
• 1 lemon
• 450ml milk
• 300g plain flour
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. fine sea salt
• 220g dried fruit of your choice

Place half the bran into a bowl and add 200ml of boiling water.  Using another bowl mix the butter and sugar together then add in the bananas and eggs individually.  Add the lemon juice to the milk and add to the mix, stir well then add the soggy bran.  Sift in the baking powder and flour; add the salt, dried fruit and dry bran.

To bake, preheat the oven to 190’C/Gas Mark 5.  Scoop the required amount of mix into a lined muffin tray and bake for 30 minutes.  When cooked, split in half and serve with a knob of butter.  Keep the unused mixture in the fridge until required.  DON’T stir it, just scoop out what you need and put it back in the fridge.

If you want to learn how to cook a filling healthy breakfast for your family, why not see if there are any cooking schools in your area.  Your family will thank you.

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns are integral to any Easter celebrations and when it comes to taste there is just nothing like home baking to make a really special bun. Individual ideas may vary in terms of the ingredients that are used and the design that the buns should have, and in the end the finer details obviously come down to personal choice. However, here are a few general points to consider if you are looking into making the perfect hot cross buns this Easter.

Currants or no currants

‘Currants of course!’ I hear you cry, but actually one of the first acknowledged recipes for hot cross buns does not use currants. It is claimed that these annual Easter offerings are the descendants of the humble ‘London bun’ – the distinctive iced white fingers that still remain today. At Easter, the currants in the London bun were replaced with candied peel and beaten eggs were added to the mixture to adapt the buns for Good Friday and give them a golden glow underneath the edible cross. One thing that is certain is that hot cross buns should never contain cranberries, even if you are American.

Should hot cross buns be boozy?

Given the nature of Good Friday as rather a sad occasion there is probably a strong argument for saying that hot cross buns should contain no booze at all. However, this has not stopped recipes being adapted over the years to include alcoholic ingredients and the most popular of these is stout. The stout is poured in to the mixture at the same time as the flour and yeast and then left overnight. The next morning the spices are added in with the eggs, butter and sugar, creating a distinctive dark and malty bun.

How long until it’s proven?

How long you leave your dough to ‘prove’ (i.e. allowing it to rise) probably depends on how late you leave it to make the buns this year. If you manage to get very organized in advance then you can follow Nigella Lawson’s method of leaving the mixture to prove over night for maximum rising time. If not, then most other recipes will recommend around an hour and a half. In theory, the longer the dough is left to prove, the lighter your buns will be.

Spice it up?

When it comes to the delicate spicing required in the perfect hot cross bun, again this can often come down to a matter of personal taste. Whilst more traditional recipes will limit the spicing to a couple of teaspoons of ‘mixed spice’ – which you can of course buy in a jar – other recipes will have you infusing the milk with everything from cardamom pods to saffron. When making the decision about spicing really it’s quite simple – if you don’t like the taste of cardamom then stick to the mixed spice.

How do you eat yours?

Hot cross buns are usually pictured served hot from the oven and oozing with a delicious, thick slab of butter. However, over the years that they have been around, variations have developed on this theme and there are now some pretty wild and wacky ideas for consuming this annual Easter treat. Marmite provides a deliciously salty contrast to the sweetness of the buns, or marmite and peanut butter together is an interesting experience. Again along savoury lines, cream cheese somehow works particularly well with hot cross buns straight from the oven. Alternatively, load yours up with jam and clotted cream for an Easter afternoon tea treat, or for something purely indulgent cover them in chocolate spread.

Once you know where you stand on these crucial bun baking issues then making the perfect hot cross buns this Easter is easy. Whether you’re infusing with cardamom or sticking to mixed spice, smothering in peanut butter or eating plain and warm from the oven, it’s always a much more satisfying experience to know you have made the buns yourself.

John is a content developer on behalf of Russell Hobbs who enjoys cooking and baking in his spare time. Visit Russell Hobbs for great deals on toasters and coffee machines.

Ice Cream Bread

When I think of fun ideas to do with my grandchildren, this is one of them.  They are always so surprised to take 2 ingredients and turn it into something like flavored bread.  This recipe is included in the book   Southern Living 1,001 Ways to Cook Southern: The Ultimate Treasury of Southern Classics .  I was fortunate to find a used copy of it at Amazon for a fair price.  It has turned out to be one of my favorite cook books.

This recipe is so easy I can’t believe it.  Ice cream only slightly flavors the bread, but the excitement for the kids when it is done is a good feeling.  Hope you try it.

The recipe calls for self rising flour.  I don’t like to keep a lot of different flours in my kitchen as it takes too long to use them up.  And, if you have ever experienced bugs in your flour, you will know what I mean.  It is easy enough to make your own self-rising flour with this recipe:

1 cup all purpose flour 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
1/4 teaspoon salt

I will usually make about 2 cups at a time if I am only going to need 1 cup.

Back to the Ice Cream Bread

1  8×4 loaf pan sprayed and floured or lined with parchment paper

preheat oven to 350 degrees

2 scoops any flavor softened  ice cream

1 1/2 cups self rising flour

Mix the flour and softened ice cream until combined

Scoop into the pan and smooth out

Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs

Let cool and enjoy

This is NOT meant to be anything but tasteful, so don’t even try using anything except full fat ice cream!