Archives for April 2015

Perfectly Imperfect Sugar Cookies

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When we were updating the kitchen at Little Flour a few years ago, the contractor told us we had three choices.  We could have it done right.  We could have it done fast.  Or we could have it done cheap.  Two of the three were possible, but not all three.  How true it is.  There is a similar truth when it comes to decorating sugar cookies with kids.  They can look good. They can taste good. Or they can be fun to decorate.  Two of the three are possible, but not all three.  UNLESS you have a little help. This week we are making sugar cookie decorating kits for some of our young friends.  We make the cookies ahead of time, and trust us they taste great!  Then we provide some adorable no fail decorations that are fun for kids.  Think your duck should be pink?  No problem. Want to eat the eyeballs before they make it to the cookie? Don’t worry, we sent extra.  Is most of your icing on your shirt?  Who cares?  With buttermilk and baking spice in the batter these cookies are great on their own as well. Happy baking!  And remember, when it comes to decorating cookies with kids (and most other things with kids too) their imperfections are what make them beautiful….

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April Flour Baskets

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DSC00594We are busy baking this week!  Flour baskets will include the traditional Little Flour Friday Baguettes plus whole grain seeded loaves for weekend toasting, perfect with a smashed avocado and poached egg!  We are also including individual snacking bags of our toasted coconut and dark chocolate chunk cookies for snacking and sharing…stay tuned for a recipe and information about another bake sale + baking class opportunity!

Thanks to our supporters and youth bakers!

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Check out these great pics of our banana bread bakers this week!  Thanks to the generous support of our Little Flour buyers, we were able to purchase ingredients for 25 loaves of banana bread, plus a shiny new red hand mixer to help get the work done!  The kids loved mashing the bananas, learning in the process that the over ripe fruit you can buy at a discount makes a great loaf of bread.  We also talked about the healthy use of whole grains and the magical sweetness of oat flour.  We learned about apple butter and decided to schedule an apple butter class this fall.  We had a lot of great conversation in the kitchen, and had snacks for all of our youth bakers this afternoon plus banana bread for everyone that drops in to the center for lunch tomorrow.  Thanks to all our supporters and young bakers who made it happen this week.  As one of our kids said today, “the smell of banana bread is next to heaven!”  So is the sight and sound of one group of kids baking for another!

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Banana Bread for Kids

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Hum dum de dum, hum de dum dum
I’m so rumbly in my tumbly
Time to munch an early luncheon
Time for something sweet -Winnie the Pooh

There is nothing like banana bread for a kid with a rumbly tummy and an urge for something sweet. That’s important, because we all know it’s harder for kids to learn when they are distracted by hunger. We think this is the absolute best banana bread you can make.  It has all the healthy stuff: whole grain wheat and oat flour, farm fresh eggs, bananas, nuts and apple butter for that touch of something sweet.  No white flour.  No white sugar.  And to keep things easy, no tricky yeast!  Best of all, it makes lots of little loaves instead of one big one. Perfect for bake sales, sharing and after school snacks.  But also perfect for an early luncheon at the kitchen table with a cup of frothy coffee!  We are baking it in bulk for our Flour Baskets and Bake Sale this week, whipping up a few batches with our young friends at the neighborhood drop in center for homeless youth, and trying to save a few loaves for the after school snack plates of our kids at home too.  Each loaf reminds us of one of the many kids we care about, and our desire to keep them healthy, happy and full of good things to eat.  We hope the kids in your life love it too!

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Banana Bread Bake Sale

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Next week Little Flour is doing double batches of our house recipe banana bread. One batch will be going to subscribers Friday afternoon in their Flour Boxes. In exchange, they will make donations to buy ingredients for a second batch which will be made onsite at our local shelter for homeless and food insecure youth. It’s a banana bread baking class/giveaway! We couldn’t be more excited to share one of our favorite (and easiest!) home baking recipes with so many people we care about. Be sure to check back next week for feedback from our young friends.

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Breakfast Toast

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“Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”  -Mary Oliver

It’s not always easy to start the day in happiness, or to be kind to the first person you encounter on your mad dash out into the world.  But how we start each day matters, especially if that first person we encounter is a spouse or child.  This toast is how we at Little Flour start our days in happiness and kindness.  It’s also the most requested bread in our Flour Baskets, and subscribers are always asking what makes it so delicious. The dates are the secret ingredient, and when we are baking it in the bakery we fold the dough over on itself every thirty minutes for the first couple hours of rising.  It takes a bit of time, but we think it’s worth it. If you enjoy baking bread at home, give it a try with your favorite mix of dried berries and raisins. If you are enjoying it fresh from Little Flour, we suggest slicing it thick, toasting, and topping with good butter. It’ll keep well in the freezer all week, and tastes so good you might actually look forward to waking up in the morning….

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Thank You!

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We love to bake, and we love to feed kids. The primary goal of Little Flour bake sales is to fund programs that allow us to do both of those things in our baking classes for hungry kids. Baking. Teaching. Advocating.  That’s what we are all about.  Thank you to all our of supporters for allowing us to do this work.

Bake Sales

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All of our bake sales, special events, and flour basket subscriptions fund baking and cooking classes at local agencies and schools working to alleviate hunger and poor nutrition in our community.