Baking Ingredients that would break the bank?

[mamilovesdisney]

Hello Folks,

I want to have an activity that I can do with my 5 year old son that is only for the two of us. My son just adores his Dad but sometimes it feels like he loves his dad more. I want to find an activity that we can do together that is fun and can be bonding time for us too. Well, I bought pre-made cookie dough at the store on sale and it was a hit with my son. So I thought now is the perfect time for baking with the holidays coming up. I just need to be careful to bake the most healthy option of goodies.

So, I have bought a few ingredients here and there and they are expensive. I don't think my baked items have been too good because of the quality of ingredients I bought and my lack of baking skills. Do you have any suggestions on where to buy good ingredients that won't break the bank?

My Walmart is always hit and miss on the ingredients they actually have on the shelf. The grocery store is too expensive. I know there must be other disers that are bakers that could point me in the right direction.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

p.s I do realize trial and error will be the only way to gain baking know how...damn

[WDWHo]

You can buy a bag of betty crocker sugar cookie mix.......thats pretty cheap and you can make them and decorate them.

How about Banana Bread? The ingredients are probably what you have in your home already.

Something my son likes to do is make goo...with cornstarch and water......if your interested I can try and find the exact recipe.

[mamilovesdisney]

Originally Posted by WDWHo

You can buy a bag of betty crocker sugar cookie mix.......thats pretty cheap and you can make them and decorate them.

How about Banana Bread? The ingredients are probably what you have in your home already.

Something my son likes to do is make goo...with cornstarch and water......if your interested I can try and find the exact recipe.

Any advice or recipes, I will gratefully accept. I have tried two loaves of banana bread in my bread maker and they both have been terrible. I think because I have used whole wheat flour and it just makes the bread too dry and dense. I read to mix white and wheat flour so I will keep trying.

[2TxAgs]

A couple of thoughts:

When my kids were younger, they loved to 'bake' with playdough. Buy several colors.
Use kid size cookie cutters, rolling pin, etc. When you've had enough, you can put away and pull out a few days later to 'bake' some more!

Another thought is to find a recipe for holiday ornaments that you bake to harden, then paint and hang on the tree. No tasting involved, but then again, it doesn't matter if you mess up!


If you just want to be in the kitchen together, try making different flavors of smoothies. Whirl up yogurt and a banana, or OJ and blueberries and yogurt or whatever and experiment with smoothies. Make 'ants on a log' - put peanutbutter on celery and scatter raisins on it. Make jello or pudding.

Finally, the recipe on the back of the Nestle's Tollhouse cookie bag is tried and true. Any old Betty Crocker cookbook from the library or Half Price Books will have lots of
easy recipes. If your banana bread is dry, try adding a small (1/4cup) container of
applesauce to the batch before baking, or add another banana. I use the applesauce in place of some of the oil to reduce the calories.

Cheers!

TxAg

[pklein09]

What kind of mixer do you have? I have a Kitchen Aid, and it will do cookie dough quite easily. If you only have a hand mixer, cookie dough will be very difficult to mix. Let me know, and I'll pick recipes that will match your equipment.

As for cheap ingredients, most of my cookies are butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder/baking soda and salt, with variations thrown in depending on the cookie. These are fairly inexpensive ingredients. You can always substitute margarine for the butter to save money there. Also, I never use whole wheat flour when baking. It's too dry, as you discovered.

I'll go searching and pm you when let me know your mixer.

--Michelle

[mamilovesdisney]

I absolutely love the idea of ornaments. I am going to google it and see what I come up with and share. As far as what mixer I have, my aunt gave me a kitchen aid blender mixer. It comes with the attachments to make it a mixer. I have never used it. The goo with starch idea is going to be fun too!

Thank you so much!

[HLDisney]

If you want to do ornaments, you can do cinnamon ornaments by mixing equal amounts of cinnamon and applesauce together and then cutting it with cookie cutters and then letting them dry until they're hard. I did it many years ago and they were very easy to do.

Hmm, now that I think of it, my DD might enjoy doing this, too...

Helen

[lovemygoofy]

I know it seems that baking items are expensive but I reason that it's alot cheaper to make a dozen cupcakes or two dozen cookies than most of the junk food, easy crap that can be bought at the grocery store.

Have you thought about making some cupcakes with your son? Cake mix and frosting are cheap.

I baked a ton last weekend making almost 100 muffins and several dozen cookies, cranberry white chocolate chip oatmeal. I'm baked out but baking again tonight making apple muffins.

If you just have to use wheat flour, use the white wheat flour or go in half and half though I don't even do that much.


I use 3 bananas when making banana bread and I mush it up with my not all the way melted butter before mixing in my dry stuff. I think this really helps keep the bread moist.

[Crystal0608]

Since you have a kitchenaid, it will make things soooo much easier. I love mine. Here a couple I think a boy would like helping with, though few baking ones.

Not so healthy, but my kids love to roll pb balls. Here's a small recipe that I came across today as a variation to make eyeballs for Halloween:
1/2 c. peanut butter-smooth
3 tbsp softened butter
1 1/4 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 c white choc chips
1 sm bag m&ms
tube red frosting
Mix pb & butter. Add sugar & vanilla. (Do this on low or sugar will go woosh!), roll balls and put on cookie sheet covered in foil or wax paper. Melt chocolate in 30 sec intervals, stirring each time. Use fork to dip ball in choc then return to cookie sheet. Press m&m in center and pipe 4 red streaks to look like blood shot eyes. I usually do mine in chocolate, but this seemed like a cool Halloween variation and its hard to mess this one up. It would cost maybe $5 to buy all this and you'd have some ingredients left over.

Another good one would be worms in dirt. Chocolate jello, gummy worms, crushed oreos. Make pudding and put in ind. dishes or cups, added crushed oreos and gummy worms hanging off the side.

Pizza! I buy premade wheat dough at TJ's for .99. Flour your surface and the dough after its at room temp, then let your little one go to town with a rolling pin. Add pizza sauce and shredded cheese and bake on pizza stone (or pan) for whatever the pizza dough pkg says. My son was so proud when he made his first goat cheese sun dried tomato pizza I had to take a pic and email to everybody for him.

Cinnamon ornaments are funny and messy to make. Mix equal parts cinnamon and plain applesauce til it starts to get firmer like playdough-add more cinnamon if you need too. I get my cinnamon at Big Lots for .50 since we won't be eating it I don't care about taste. Dust surface with cinnamon. Roll out with spin then use holiday cookie cutters. Don't roll too thin or they will tear. Use a straw to punch out a hole at the top. Let air dry for a couple days or dry in oven on very low heat (200). Add ribbon or yard to hang from tree. My mama wraps all her ornaments and still has some my kids made about 5 years ago and they still smell good.

[bumbershoot]

Originally Posted by mamilovesdisney

Any advice or recipes, I will gratefully accept. I have tried two loaves of banana bread in my bread maker and they both have been terrible. I think because I have used whole wheat flour and it just makes the bread too dry and dense. I read to mix white and wheat flour so I will keep trying.

I don't think a bread maker is needed for banana bread...it's a dessert bread, not a bread-bread. When I make it I just mix it up with a fork, really.



Even though good ingredients (like good vanilla, not the stuff with corn syrup or, worse, HFCS, in it) are expensive up front to buy, you have to divide the cost out by how many things you can make with it!

Vanilla and organic flour are the big expenditures for my baking cupboard...other than that it's Calumet baking powder, Arm and Hammer baking soda, C&H sugar...the basics. I do use organic butter, but honestly it doesn't taste "right", even though I've been using it for 2+ years now.

I like allrecipes for recipes, other than that my Betty Crocker cookbook has some good and simple cake and cookie recipes. Baking a yellow cake from scratch is just a few steps more than pouring out a mix from a box, and you control the ingredients (none of the additives to keep it fresh on a grocery store shelf, no bleah sweeteners you'd never use at home, etc).

Nice thing about 5 year olds (and husbands) is that they will generally eat any sweet thing made, even if you think it's disgusting (witness my chocolate chip cookies I just made, that are flatter than anything because I let the butter get mushy, not just softened). At least that's been my experience.

[purpletiger]

I have found that in the past when I need recipes I either go to www.bettycrocker.com or www.kraft.com. They both have really great easy recipes to follow. You might want him to help you with dinner every night not just your baking. My DS7 helps me every night with dinner. He has been doing it for a few years now and just loves it. He is getting to be a really good cook. He loves to help out. Sometimes when I need a recipe for dinner and clueless I go to www.campbellssoup.com and you just type in what you have and they will come up with recipes that match your ingredients. Very easy and good. Another cheap dinner and some dessert recipes is www.5dollardinners.com and you also might try www.pillsbury.com. Good luck with you bonding.

[limace]

Ingredients are pretty cheap, as mentioned above, as long as you shop carefully and don't get too fancy. Look for butter on sale, or Trader Joes has good prices.

Always buy spices in bulk-much cheaper than in the jar.

Check out recipe websites with user reviews, like epicurious.com or allrecipes.com-reduces the chance you'll waste $on ingredients.

And the secret to quick breads is to stir them as little as possible, so I'm wondering if the bread machine would overmix the banana bread.

[2TxAgs]

Hey Tina....I'd love to know how you make your oatmeal-cranberry-white choc cookies or muffins. Those sound good!

TxAg

[pklein09]

Originally Posted by mamilovesdisney

As far as what mixer I have, my aunt gave me a kitchen aid blender mixer. It comes with the attachments to make it a mixer.

It this a blender or the kitchen aid stand mixer? Or is it a stick blender that can puree soups, etc.? It makes a big difference on what you can do with it.

[lovemygoofy]

Originally Posted by 2TxAgs

Hey Tina....I'd love to know how you make your oatmeal-cranberry-white choc cookies or muffins. Those sound good!

TxAg

Sure here is the cookie receipe. I cannot keep them in stock. My husband and his office and my office love them.
If you want the muffin receipes I'd be happy to share those. Today is apple strusel muffins. Last weekend I made pumpkin cream cheese muffins and ham/cheese cornbread muffins.

OATMEAL CRANBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES
2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 6-ounce packageCraisinsweetened Dried Cranberries
1-1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup white chocolate chunks or chips

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Using an electric mixer, beat butter or margarine and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in sweetened dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes approximately 2-1/2 dozen cookies.