This is a modification of a Martha Stewart recipe. This recipe is pretty versatile, you can add whatever combination of dried fruit, seeds and/or nuts you like (we did raisins and apricots today). Then make anything from small snack to large “running too late to make breakfast” sized biscuits. You don’t have to feel too bad about giving the kids biscuits, because they are packed with lots of good things.
Ingredients:
250 grams butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 free-range eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
pinch salt
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups raisins
1/4 cup dried apricots chopped
Instructions:
Cream butter and sugar together in a food processor until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and vanilla essence. Add flour, baking powder and salt into food processor and mix until combined. Transfer to a large bowl. Add rolled oats, coconut raisins and dried apricots (chopped to the size of about raisins).
With nice clean hands mix everything together until combined. Make balls of the mixture (we did about golf ball sized today) and squash down to about 1 cm thick. Bake at 180°C (356°F) for 20-30 minutes depending on the size (we did 25 minutes today).
What the kids can do:
Hand washing: Don’t forget to get the kids (and grownups too of course) to wash their hands before you start. Little hands always seem to end up touching everything, including the ingredients. This is extra important given the current Covid-19 situation. For good 20 second hand wash, have them sing “happy birthday to me” twice.
Eggs: Pro tip for breaking eggs with a 4 year old, break eggs into a separate glass bowl before adding to your other ingredients. That way you can see and pick out any bits of shell before they are added in by mistake. I like to use free range eggs, because it is kinder to the chickens, and they also taste better. Bear in mind that raw eggs can carry Salmonella so wash little hands if they end up the raw egg. I also don’t recommend eating raw cake batter, just in case.
Mixing the ingredients: My daughter (age 4) helped mix the ingredients in the food processor. Bear in mind that little hands can fit down the shoot of the food processor, so always supervise this step. She then helped to add the final ingredients to the bowl and mix, though I had to finish this off.
The biggest messes seen to happen when sifting and mixing dry ingredients with the kids. A great tip from reader Dana M is to put a towel down underneath, which catches any stray ingredients for easy cleaning.
Keeping Them Occupied 