Homemade vs Packet Brownies - our experiment

A comment from Euan a couple of weeks ago prompted this experiment. He has a memory from when he was a kid of the best brownies he ever tasted - made from a packet.

So we decided to test which actually tasted better by making both home made and packet brownies at the same time.

The Packet Mix

There were a few different brownie mixes to choose from at the supermarket. After checking out the ingredients and finding that they're all basically the same, I chose the cheapest one - which incidentally had the highest proportion of chocolate chips in the ingredients list!

All we had to do to make was to pour the packet mix into a bowl,

add water, melted butter and eggs; mix together and pour into the pan, then bake for 20 mins.

Homemade Brownies

For the home-made brownies we sieved the dry ingredients together into the bowl, which then resembled the packet mix. To this we added eggs, melted butter (I use margarine) and chocolate chips. Mixed all together and baked for 16 mins.

In appearance, both brownie 'slabs' looked much the same. the homemade one had risen a little more.

We cut the brownies into sample squares from each type and all tried them out......

The verdict?

You could barely tell any difference between them. The home-made ones were slightly 'cakier' and a little moister in the centre, other than that - the same.

I have to say I was disappointed with the result. I would always say that I prefer homemade - and that of course it has a better taste, but I have to admit that for this one, I couldn't really tell the difference. 

This was in contrast to the last experiment we did like this with bought premade chocolate chip cookie dough vs homemade chocolate chip cookies. Then, the homemade was a clear winner!

But how about the brownies?  Well although the taste was the same, the packet mix plus added ingredients was about $4.20 whereas homemade cost about $2.75. So the homemade brownies were cheaper - and of course no preservatives or additives!

I will still stick to homemade brownies and other cakes and biscuits, but I'm not against trying out more packet and convenience foods so our kids can see the comparisons and make their own decisions about which they think is better.

How about you? Do you use packet mixes for baking cakes and cookies? Or do you bake from scratch?

Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment

I love baking, and make a lot of my own biscuits and cakes from scratch. I've never really seen the point of buying cake mixes and cookie dough, as I don't see them as being cheaper or really any more convenient than making a simple batch of your own.

So when my daughter's class at school decided to fund raise by selling tubs of cookie dough, I thought I would actually buy a tub and see what it was really like instead of just judging without experiencing.

Once the dough arrived, we made two batches of chocolate chip cookies. The first batch we made using the dough, which you can freeze, keeps for up to 4 weeks in the fridge, and you can also re-freeze it!

We tasted the dough before cooking, worked out the cost per cookie and then tasted the cookies afterwards.

The bought cookie dough tasted nice but REALLY sweet. The cookies were also nice.

The next batch was made from scratch with this recipe:

100g (4oz) Margarine

75g (3oz) Soft brown sugar

2 tblsp Syrup

175g (6oz) Self Raising Flour

100g (4oz) Chocolate Chips

2tsp Milk

Beat margarine and sugar together, stir in syrup, flour and chocolate chips. Mix well. Place spoonfuls on the mixure onto greased trays and bake for 8-10 mins at 180C (350F). 

The uncooked dough was tasty and not so sweet as the bought dough. The cookies themselves also tasted good!!

Overall, although we liked both types of cookie, we all (our family and some friends) preferred the made-from-scratch home baked cookies.

When we worked out the price of the cookies, the bought dough cookies were 30c each, and the made from scratch just 15c each.

So for half the price and a nicer, more natural flavour, I will still be sticking to making my cookies from scratch.

It was a fun and very tasty experiment to do with the kids, and good for them to actually see and understand my reasoning rather than just accepting my opinion unquestioningly!

How about you? Do you make your own cakes and biscuits from scratch? Or do you use cake mixes and cookie dough?

Lemon Cookies - and more Naplan practice!

Recipes 

Our youngest daughter is a budding cook and loves making cookies and cakes.  She has a page-a-day calendar with recipes for cookies on. Here's one batch she made last week:

Ingredients:

For the Cookies:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

grated zest of 3 lemons

1 1/2 cups plain flour

3tbsp cornflour

For the Filling:

4 tbsp butter

1 cup sugar

grated zest of 2 lemons

juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon zest together until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cornflour together and stir into the creamed mixture. Roll into balls and press flat on a baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool.

To make the filling, beat the butter and sugar together with the lemon zest and juice until light and fluffy. Spread the filling onto the flat side of one cookie, then put another cookie on top and sandwich together.

Baking as a way to practice numeracy skills

Baking is a great way for kids to practice a number of skills - not just the skill of baking!

Measurements are well practised as ingredients are weighed etc. Depending on the unit of measurement, sometimes fractions are sometimes practiced - as they are here, when things are measured in cups, and half cups etc.  This is something that can come up on the Naplan test in Grade 3 too. For example - here is a question I found on one of the past papers:

Thomas needs 3 cups of flour to make a cake.

He only measures 1/2 cup at a time.

How many 1/2 cups of flour will he need?

1   2   3   or 6 ?

When a student is faced with a question like this, of course they are being tested on their knowledge of basic fractions, but if they have had the real life experience of measuring flour using half cups for a recipe, then the question becomes so much more familiar and so, easier.

We have a large and varied selection of recipes that the girls can bake from - with measurements in cups, grams and ounces, depending on where the recipes come from !  It is great for the kids to be exposed to all these different measurements and to also be able to understand how they relate to each other. Many recipes have 2 different measurements shown, so the kids get used to seeing for example 100g (4 oz), and so gradually learn to convert between different units of measurement.

Estimation

The more kids bake and weigh ingredients, the better they become at estimating weights. It is not only important that kids can read and use units of measurements, but also that they have a rough idea of what, for example 1 kg might feel like.

Another way of practising this is by helping at the shops when buying say - a bag of sugar, and feel the weight of it when they put it in the basket. Or perhaps they know their own weight and so then have a reference point to compare other things to.

Estimating real weights and lengths etc is something else that may appear on the Naplan test, where the students may have to choose the most sensible or likely option from the answers as to what something might weigh or measure.

Here is another example of a question from a past paper:

Which of these is the closest to the length of a real shoe?

5cm

25cm

75cm

100cm

To answer this question, students need to understand what 1cm is actually like and be able to relate this to real life objects. I remember always using my 'big' 30cm ruler at school to compare things to when estimating lengths. It's helpful for kids to have a point of reference like this to refer to - something that they can think, "Is this object longer or shorter than my 30cm ruler?"; thus making it easier to estimate the length of something they don't know.

Real life is often the best practice

I hope these examples show that written tests not only test the student's knowledge of facts - but can be a measure of their understanding of some basic things they encounter in real life.

Sometimes the best practice for basic numeracy and literacy skills for young kids is doing something 'real' - like baking!

So - take a look in your recipe books, and see what tasty delights your kids could bake with you, for some 'homework'  today!

Chocolate Christmas Biscuits

Today our girls did some Christmas baking. They made some yummy biscuits. Here's the recipe:

100g margarine

1 egg

2 cups plain flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

Using electric beaters, beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, then add egg and beat well.  Sift together flour, cocoa and baking powder, then add to the butter mixture. Mix to form a soft dough.

Roll out the dough and cut shapes from it. Place on trays and bake for 10-12 mins at 180C.  Cool.

The girls are getting good practice with their measuring, and also reading the instructions.  Both are learning fractions, so it's good for them to be reading and measuring in fractions of cups!

Of course choosing and cutting out lots of different shapes for the biscuits is always fun.

Every time they bake something, their confidence grows in mixing, measuring, cracking eggs etc.  Pretty soon they'll be able to bake by themselves and surprise us with tasty treats!!

Are your kids doing any Christmas baking?

Vanilla jam biscuits

Both our girls like to help out when I cook and bake, but our youngest is showing a particular interest in baking cakes, sweets and biscuits.  So once a week through last term she chose and made us a new dessert.  It's great to watch her confidence grow as she learns to measure, mix and read and understand the recipes.

She's learning to weigh and measure in both imperial (pounds and ounces) and metric (grams); and also in terms of cups,  as I have a selection of recipe books from the UK and Australia so the measurements vary from recipe to recipe!

Here's one of the things she made us recently - Vanilla Jam Biscuits

Ingredients:

125g butter or margarine

1 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups SR flour, sifted

1/2 cup custard powder, sifted

Icing:

100g butter or margarine

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

1/3 cup strawberry jam

icing sugar to dust

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Using electric beaters, beat margarine and sugar, add egg and vanilla and beat well.
3. Fold in flour and custard powder until mixture is firm. Put in fridge for 30 minutes
4. Roll out dough and cut into star shapes. Place onto greased trays and bake for 8-10 minutes until golden.
5. Cool on wire rack.
6. Make the icing - beat margarine and icing sugar together.
7. Spread a little icing, then a little jam onto a biscuit, and then sandwich another biscuit on top. Repeat with remaining biscuits.
8. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

The biscuits were a big hit with everyone and our daughter was very proud of having made them all by herself!  (I barely helped at all).  Her arms get tired using the electric beaters after a while, and I also helped with rolling out the last of the dough but pretty much everything else she did herself (I just watched and took photos!)

What a great skill to learn - and the added skills of learning and practising measurements, and following instructions provide bonus extra maths practice for the holidays, with no 'school work' in sight!  We'll be doing a lot more of this baking over the school holidays - particularly with Christmas approaching and plenty of yummy sweet recipes around to try!

Do your kids bake and cook?  What yummy dishes have they made you, and what parts do you still need to help them with?