Anzac Slice with chocolate chips

I have been taking part in the super fun Fat Mum Slim 365 photo a day challenge for nearly 1.5 years now, where you post a photo to your Instagram account according to the theme set out for that day. You attach the relevant hashtag so other participants can find you and then you enjoy seeing everyone else's interpretation of the prompt.

You may be wondering what this has to do with my baking, but bear with me.  The lady who is Fat Mum Slim is Australian, and she recently was pleased to take part in something or other to commemorate Anzac Day today, and she also posted a recipe for and Anzac Slice with chocolate chips that sounded both tasty and easy.  So I made it.

The recipe was really easy and straightforward to follow, and before long I was at the stage of putting the slice in the oven.

As you can see from the before photos, I may not have waited quite the full 15 minutes she recommended, because some of my chocolate chips are glistening from starting to melt.  But I got it straight into the oven after this, just to be sure.

And took it out 27 minutes later - wow Becca Towers smelt great!!!   They tasted amazing straight from the oven, warm and comforting and just the right mix between crunch and chewiness.  But I left them to cool overnight, planning to take them in to colleagues the next day and by morning they had hardened up.  The Team and I had to taste test them (again) obviously, and they were still fabulous but with a more solid and thus harder to initially bite into texture.  

So next time I shall try them for only 24 minutes.  Happy Anzac Day one and all.  Lest we forget.

Double chocolate chip cookies - afternoon tea winner!

It's the second-last day of the spring school holidays here, and we've been busy with play dates (so much fun for me too, as it's too long between catch-ups for us Mums too), sports camp/classes, walks, arts and crafts, general outdoor play and so on.  This week's gymnastics sports camp is getting them pretty tired, so when they asked to go out for afternoon tea today, I didn't really fancy it.  Instead we went home and whipped up some super delicious double chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.

But that will take ages, you might think.  Well, kinda but not really, and it was much more fun and we knew exactly what we were eating.  Mini-1 retired to the couch with her tablet computer and Mini-2 and I got started.

She's keen to be as grown-up and independent as possible, and has listened well on other baking projects, so enjoyed using the hand-mixer - but not cracking the egg.  Why, you ask?  Well, she didn't fancy washing her hands yet again, ha ha.

Two different types of chocolate chips were added - the recipe calls for peanut butter chips but a) we've used up all that we received from the USA a year or so ago, and b) we're kinda over them. Sorry to all our American friends out there.  We'd love to try any other fancy chips you do, not butterscotch though please as we've had them too, but not pb any longer.  No hurt feelings, right?
Anyway, back to the cookies...

We chose to do just small cookies, with a spoon and knife for skill and cleanliness.  We managed to get 40 small mounds of dough out of our mix and popped them in the oven.  A scant 12 minutes later we had hot cookie heaven!!

I couldn't resist and tasted one just moments later - oh my!!  So so good, crisp and crunchy, just the way I like them.  When the kids came through, one had the great idea of sandwiching them with cookies and cream ice-cream to make a Choc Chip cookie Ice-cream Sandwich - oh yes please!  

Peanut butter choc chip banana cookies, or how to use up bananas

As usual, I am way behind in updating you with all the baking that's been going on here at Becca Towers over the last few months.  I always meant, right from the outset, to blog at the very least weekly so that you would have an idea of how often and what types of things we were baking in the The Kitchen.  But then things happen - kids have toddler groups, and then school and after-school activities, and playdates and so on, and updating the blog with all the info and photos on the computer gets moved to the bottom of the priority list.  It's not that it's not important, just not in the same league as getting name tags sewn on to clothes, or organising gym kits, or swimming lessons and so forth.

So there's another baking blogger I like to read, Rose Bakes, and she has much the same issues in her blogging life - she bakes more often than I, and homeschools her 6 kids, so is even busier than me.  I think she just doesn't sleep, otherwise how does she manage?  :)  So anyway, she is honest and just blogs a post and says 'Oh, I made these last October...' so I think I may head along that path...  What do you think??

But just to mix things up a bit, I have a bit of time now so I'm going to quickly tell you about the cookies that Mini-2 and I made a few hours ago!!  School resumed after our lovely long and busy 6 week summer holidays this week, and Mini-2 had asked to make (or technically, eat) some chocolate chip cookies.  Then this recipe popped up on my Facebook newsfeed and I was sold.  I mean, don't you always have one or two slightly overripe bananas in the house?  No?  Oh, just me then, ha ha.

It's been many years that I've been baking regularly, and if you've been following the blog or my Facebook page, you'll recall that Mini-1 is bored of cake - won't even eat it if she's away from home - but Mini-2 still enjoys whatever I bake.  She really enjoys helping too, whether it's baking or cooking we're doing (Mini-1 not so much).  So here she is adding the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

And this next shot is a gratuitous one really, just so we can see that she's grown, but still likes a wee helping hand to reach into the bowl more easily.

Once both the Reese's peanut butter chips (imported by a pupil from his family's holiday to Florida late last year) and chocolate chips were added the mixture had to be cooled.

And thus we have the result - the first batch quite soft and golden-coloured (I didn't like those as much, but The Team preferred them) and subsequent batches more tanned and crunchy.  A not too-strong taste of banana and I'd say we have a winner folks!!  

Choc chip spiced banana loaf

I was really enjoying the taste of the pumpkin pie spice, and we had some bananas going spare... so Spiced Banana Loaf was born!!

It went down a storm with The Team, and the select few taste-testers who were lucky enough to get some.  A definite winner for next autumn!