You just have to take a stroll down Bedford’s River Great Ouse. The Embankment is charming, elegant and full of features to explore and enjoy. From wildlife, to plants and tree’s to cute cafes and play parks. A very Victorian way to de-stress and reconnect.Fan of baking? Kids half term coming up? Getting prepared for the festive season? National baking week is between the 14th and 15th October! The perfect time to make some homemade treats for you and the family. Maybe even a chance to bake some Halloween treats for your friends to cheer them up!
National Baking Week was started by Pyrex in 2007, to encourage people of all abilities to bake at home. It was a simple idea promoted nationally by the company, bloggers, recipe writers and baking enthusiasts alike.
So whilst staying with us, why not use this as a chance to get baking. Our properties come with all pots, pans, spoons etc that you will need.
Baking is fun, creative and you end up with something edible at the end of it.
Baking also stimulates the senses such as touch, taste and smell, making it great for children who like sensory activities. Many people also consider cooking as a meditative practice saying it helps them relax and unwind. Making your own food can also be a great way to be more mindful and careful about what you eat, as well as being a cost-effective way to feed the family or the children in your setting.
The internet is full of recipes and ideas of things that are suitable for younger children to make, from cupcakes to chocolate brownies to volcano cakes, so there really is no excuse for not taking some time to inspire children with baking.
Healthy tips and tricks to make your baking extra nutritious! :
- Hide some of your 5-a-day fruit and veggies into your bakes. You can add carrots, onions and avocados to savoury cheese muffins which are perfect for lunch boxes, or blueberries and raspberries also go well in muffins instead of chocolate chips; spinach is full of iron and nutrients and is great to add because it can colour the food green, to add to the fun; and of course everyone loves banana bread
- Oats are easy to bake with and sometimes don’t even need to go in the oven but they are also high in fibre and good sources of slow-release carbohydrates. They are also higher in protein and fat than most other grains and high in many vitamins and minerals. You can make oat cookies or flapjacks, which are easy and there are lots of healthy alternative recipes which use natural syrups or fruit syrups instead of sugar
- Use wholemeal flour instead of white flour to increase your fibre intake or make a half-and-half mixture
- Use unsaturated fat in your baking to reduce your saturated fat intake. There are several brands that are suitable but make sure they say they can be used in baking as the ingredients, emulsifiers and fat content of some spreads make them unsuitable for some baking tasks
- Instead of using thick butter icing for cake toppings, switch to drizzling some glacé (water-based) icing instead. You can still use food colouring to make it interesting, but it is much lower in fat than butter icing
Easy baking recipes:
- https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegan-sugar-cookies/
- https://www.loveandlemons.com/brownies-recipe/
- https://www.loveandlemons.com/tahini-cookies/
Halloween baking recipes:
- https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/eerie-eyeball-pops
- https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/halloween-slash-cake
- https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/halloween-cupcakes
