Taking ownership in the kitchen.
The weekends is a great time to do fun things with the kids. I love to especially get them in involved in the kitchen. With two kids, it’s like two monkeys fighting. Who gets to sift, who gets to measure. It’s chaos. So last weekend I decided that each child can make something on their own to avoid disagreements. My youngest chose to make caramel cookies – a recipe she hadn’t made before.
What I love about this recipe is that it’s simple to make. With only four ingredients, a child can take ownership in the kitchen to make this themselves. It’s a great way to get them familiar with all the utensils and reading a recipe. While I supervised and gave a little gentle guidance, my youngest made these biscuits herself. She was so proud she did it without much help from me.
Caramel… but not caramel
These caramel cookies are not really caramel. They contain brown sugar and golden syrup which I guess gives a caramel-like flavour. This is a cheats way of creating the flavour. True caramel is made a few ways.
- Sweetened condensed milk. I’ve seen recipes that asks you to boil up a can in a pot or in the oven. Speak to different people and they will even talk about adding a can into the dishwasher during a wash cycle. The caramel is golden and creamy – often used for caramel slice or other caramel desserts.
- With cream and/or butter. You don’t need a can of sweetened condensed milk to make caramel. You can in fact make it from scratch with just a few ingredients – sugar, unsalted butter, cream and a little salt. Stove top is pretty much the only way to make this but I’ve seen a recipe or two that mentions microwave. I’m not sure I’d want to make this in a microwave as it’s harder to keep an eye on it from potentially bubbling over.
- With just sugar. You don’t need to add any dairy into the recipe to make caramel. However, it depends on the recipe it will be used in. Sugar and a little water is pretty much all that’s needed to make a caramel syrup.
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Caramel Cookies
Ingredients
- 115 g butter, at room temperature (½ cup)
- 110 g brown sugar, packed (½ cup)
- 2 tablespoons golden syrup
- 175 g self-raising flour, (1 cup)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray with baking or non-stick paper.
- In a bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar. Add golden syrup and stir until light and fluffy.
- Add the flour and mix together until the mixture binds together.
- Roll the dough into tablespoon-sized balls. Place on the baking tray about 2cm apart. Press lightly with a fork.
- Bake for 12 minutes, or until cookies are golden. Cool before eating.