Five-a-day treats: Courgette After Eight Cupcakes

Chocolate and courgette cupcakes with a mint and cream cheese icing: good way to use up the overflow of courgettes and mint from the garden. We only have the latter, and the Little Chefs loved picking the mint leaves (and picked almost none of the neighbouring strawberry leaves...)

 For 20 cupcakes

Ingredients:

5 tbsp butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
200 g caster sugar
1 cup yoghurt
340 g self-raising flour
50 g cocoa powder
2 medium courgettes, grated

200 g soft cheese
100 g caster sugar
40 mint leaves

chocolate chips, to decorate

Method:

- preheat the oven to 180'C/fan 160'C and place the butter in a heat proof bowl in the oven to melt
- beat the eggs with the sugar, the yoghurt and the melted butter
- mix the flour and the cocoa powder
- stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture to the count of 10
- add the courgettes and stir 3 more times - don't worry if you can still see bits of flour
- line two muffin trays with cupcake cases and fill them up to two thirds with the mixture
- bake in the oven for 20 minutes
- let them rest in the muffin tray for 5 minutes, then allow to cool on a rack before icing

- while the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the icing: mince the mint leaves with a stick blender, then stir in the cream cheese and the sugar
- use a piping bag to ice the cupcakes and sprinkle with chocolate chips

And a few tips:
- the chocolate and courgettes cupcakes work really well on their own too, without icing, as the courgette makes them really moist
- when you're icing, make sure you press down the mixture in the piping bag, so there are no bubbles

*The bold text in the recipe shows the steps that the Little Chefs did (with supervision).*

Five-a-day treats: Blueberry biscuits

Handy for summer travel: quick to make, and chewing the oats will keep little mouths occupied for a while. I created the original recipe when my son was a baby, so it didn't have any sugar. It was only during the Little Chefs course on Friday that one of the mums pointed out the lack of sugar - so, as we were catering for toddlers, we sprinkled some on top of the biscuits. It's optional however, for those with not so much of a sweet tooth, the banana might be sufficient!

For 10 large biscuits:

Ingredients:

110 g butter, melted

2 bananas

1 egg

85 g plain flour

55 g small oat flakes

handful of blueberries

caster sugar, to sprinkle (optional)

Method:

- preheat the oven to 180'C/fan 160'C and line two baking trays with baking paper

- mash the bananas with a fork

- mix mashed bananas, melted butter and egg

- mix flour and oatflakes

- stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones to the count of 10 - bits of flour showing is not a problem

- add the blueberries and stir 3 more times

- spoon the mixture onto the baking paper, leaving plenty of space between biscuits - one heaped tablespoon of mixture will make one biscuit

- sprinkle with caster sugar, if using and bake in the oven for 20 minutes

And a few tips:

- to melt the butter, place it in the preheating oven (if you don't have a microwave oven, like me)

- raspberries work well too, and dried fruit in the winter should be worth a try

*The bold text in the recipe shows the steps that the Little Chefs did (with supervision).*

Five-a-day treats: Stripey strawberry yoghurt cake

This is a quick and healthy version of a cheesecake in a jar. 

For 4 jars

Ingredients:

250 g digestive biscuits
100 g melted butter
500 g pot of full fat Greek yoghurt
400 g punnet of strawberries, sliced
4 jam jars

long handled spoons to eat

Method:

- crush the biscuits in a food processor - if you don't have one, place them in a freezer bag and smash them with a rolling pin
- mix with the melted butter
- spoon some of the mixture into a jar and flatten it with the back of the spoon - it should be about 1.5 cm thick
- then spoon in some yoghurt, arrange a layer of strawberries on top, then one more layer of yoghurt and one more of strawberries

- chill in the fridge or eat right away

And a few tips:

- if you want really nice stripes, go easy on the yoghurt, and pack in plenty of strawberries

- as more berries are going to come into season, stripes of raspberries and blueberries or blackberries will make it even prettier

*The bold text in the recipe shows the steps that the Little Chefs did (with supervision).*