Easy Cornflake & White Choc Chip Cookies

Growing up Mum nearly always made cornflake cookies with the leftover cornlakes lying at the botton of the box. Once the free toy was gone, we weren’t interested in them all that much. We did love the cookies though but I always find them so cumbersome to make, having to roll in cornflakes. While baking, they usually fall off so I don’t bother making them.

My son has taken quite a liking to cornflakes lately (plus a couple spoonfuls of sugar sprinkled on top I might add) so I’m lucky if I get a few leftover at the bottom of the box. The cookie tin was empty, I had some white choc chips in the pantry so a blast from the past and these cornflake cookies were made.  I found rolling spoonfuls of cookie dough into balls with the cornflakes already mixed in gave a much nicer cookie with a subtle crunch. The addition of white choc chips made them a little more decadent too. Any type of chocolate would work well. This is a great recipe for the kids to get involved.

Easy Cornflake & White Choc Chip Cookies
(Recipe based on www.taste.com.au)

• 125gm butter, melted
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 1 & 3/4 cups self raising flour
• 1/2 cup white choc chips
• 1 & 1/2 cups cornflakes

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Add vanilla and melted butter to brown sugar.
3. Add eggs and mix well
4. Add flour, choc chips and cornflakes to the butter mixture and stir until well combined.
5. Roll balls of dough onto a baking sheet lined with paper, allowing room to spread.
6. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Mini Banana Choc Chip Muffin Bites

Friends have been taunting me with delicious banana cake/bread recipes for the last couple of weeks. I have to admit banana cake isn’t one of the most popular things on my list of things to bake. I used to love it when it first became popular but I don’t think I like that overripe banana taste anymore so haven’t been making it much. The trouble is I nearly always have overripe bananas on hand or in the freezer ready to be whipped up into icy poles or the dreaded banana cake.

While at the supermarket today, I was browsing the pre-packaged ‘kid snacks’ that are oh so handy to throw into their lunch boxes when I spotted these. I don’t ever buy them except sometimes those long jelly ropes or the odd cheese spread with crackers. These were $5 for 6 and they were tiny, tiny, tiny. I was even more determined to use up those 2 rotting overripe bananas on top of my fridge. As it turns out, with my standard muffin recipe, I yielded 36 mini muffin ‘bites’. They were popped in the freezer and if I play my cards right, they should last my son until nearly the end of this term.

These little muffin trays are perfect for little mouths. Even if my son was to have 2, it would be okay. I did a rough costing on these including allowing for running the oven and the details are as follows:

2 cups self raising flour = 10 cents

1/2 cup chocolate chips = 80 cents

1 egg = 41 cents 

1/2 cup sugar = 16 cents

1 cup milk = 50 cents

1/4 cup oil = 18 cents

2 overripe bananas = 60 cents

1 tsp cinnamon = 10 cents

Running oven for 1 hour = 64 cents

Total = $3.49 (divided by 36) equals 9 cents per muffin

(By the way, that’s the recipe above. Just bake until golden on a 160 deg C oven.)

So you can see its way more cost effective to make this sort of thing at home and even I liked these. I think the teaspoon of cinnamon took away that overripe banana taste. Oh, and if you’re looking for really great banana cake recipes, these are four that I had on my to do list. If only I liked bananas a little bit more.

Iced Banana Cake by My Farm, My Table

Very Moist Banana Bread by Desire Empire

Perfect Banana Bread by Little Teapot

Banana Bread by Nigella Lawson

Craisin & Chocolate Chip Fingers

Did you feel the earth move over the weekend? If you did it was because a miracle occurred. I finally got around to reorganising my pantry. I’ve just learnt to put up with food products being in 3 different cupboards for about the last 9 years, since the kids were born, but I set my mind to it and came up with a workable solution…I think. So far, so good but in the event of reorganising, I found enough cupcake papers to make cupcakes for a small nation, 2 extra packets of bicarbonate of soda and I don’t know how many packets of sprinkles, nuts, seeds and dried fruit. It was time to use up some of those packets.

If you don’t know what a ‘craisin’ is, its a dried cranberry and they’re chewy like a raisin or sultana. I thought I’d add some chocolate chip for the kiddos for their lunch box treat and top with a little dark chocolate drizzled on top.

My son’s being taking two of these in his lunch box every day this week and he loves them. For something a little different from your typical dried fruit, why not try a craisin. (Now that I’ve used them all up, I must buy some more!)

Craisin & Chocolate Chip Fingers

• 125gm butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup craisins (or other dried fruit)
• 1/2 cup sultanas (or golden raisins)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• extra dark chocolate for drizzle

1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.
2. Mix self raising flour, sugar, cinnamon, craisins, sultanas and chocolate chips.
3. Mix (cooled) melted butter and egg together. Add to dry ingredients.
4. Press into a 20x18cm slice tin and bake until golden. (Approx 20 mins.)
5. Once cooled, cut into ‘fingers’ and drizzle with a little melted dark chocolate.