As school’s starting this week, we have been in full back-to-school mode: getting stationary sorted, uniforms ironed, new lunchboxes and water bottles – all sorted. One thing we couldn’t miss out on is preping for snacks for school. I don’t want to do what I did last year – baking too much at a time with the hopes that it will fill up all the lunchboxes for weeks. Turns out banana muffins can get boring pretty quickly, even with chocolate buttons in them (What do you mean you don’t like them any more? They have chocolate chips in them for goodness sake!). They don’t freeze that well and the taste deteriorates the longer they have been frozen.

This year, I’m going to try out a few different ideas for lunch and teas. First off, baking from pre-made, frozen dough.
This is hardly a new idea, just underestimated by me as a true time saver (I find it really hard to hold back and not bake the entire batch sometimes). By doubling the batch and keeping some reserve dough in the freezer, you can always bring it out the night before to let it thaw and very quickly you’ll have a fresh batch of baking for the week. Same idea as mise en place, you will be saving time spent on prep. You can build on your ‘baking bank’ with a variety of recipes and you’ll always have something on hand for parties too.

Here’s our recipe for gingerbread cookies, these have a nice light crunch, no teeth-breaking involved 🙂

Ingredients:
450g plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp baking powder
115g melted butter
100g golden syrup
115g muscavado sugar
1.5 size 7 egg, beaten (about 60g)

Method:
Mix the flour, spices, baking powder in a large bowl.
Pour melted butter, syrup and sugar into mix, combine.
Add the eggs and combine.
Tip contents onto a large board, work the dough until everything comes together without being sticky.
Roll out to 3mm thickness and cut into shapes with cutters.

Fan bake for 18 minutes in a preheated oven at 160C, until golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack.