World Bread Day: Cream Cheese Fruit Bread

Today is World Bread Day, and nothing is better than dragging out the bread machine and letting it make you some piping hot yumminess. Pity this bread wasn't really our cup of tea. Well, the boys wolfed it down, and Miss Three would have eaten hers, but it was so heavy and dense the slice broke when she tried to lift it, resulting in tears, and dried fruit mixed with vanilla yogurt. Not to worry, I ate hers. But I found that it was only the hint of cinnamon and the dried fruit that made it nice at all. Perhaps if you had fussy children that needed their dairy hidden, this would be great, but I don't see the point of the cheese except to ruin the texture of the bread. Still, it got rave reviews, so it could be just me.

Cinnamon Cranberry Cream Cheese Bread adapted from Allrecipes
1/3 cup milk
1 cup cream cheese, diced
1/4 cup margarine
1 egg
3 TBSP sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups bread flour
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp Dutch cinnamon
2/3 cup dried cranberries
2/3 cup diced dried apricots

Place everything into your bread machine and select Sweet loaf, Light crust. Serve hot with butter. Then head on over to Kochtopf to check out all the other yummy entries.

Don't forget to think (and cook!) pink for the Virtual Night In, raising money and awareness for Breast Cancer Research.

Kids Cooking Thursday: Orange & Cranberry Muffins

Orange & Cranberry Muffins
1 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 cups self raising flour
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
zest of one orange
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Put the cranberries and orange juice in a small saucepan, and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool and plump.
Line a muffin pan with paper cases. We had enough batter for 18.
Sift the flour and the salt together into a bowl. (Miss Three loves to whack the side of the sieve to make the flour come out!)
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, orange zest, sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Then fold a third of the flour into the mixture, and then half of the milk, then flour, milk and flour again, until just combined.(Miss Three's favourite part of cooking is holding the measuring cup over the bowl and tipping it in when full) Don't over work it, so let your child mix first, and then finish it up yourself. Fold in the cranberries, and then divide the batter into the muffin cases. You want the case to be about 2/3s full. Cook for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

If you'd like to join in with Kids Cooking Thursday please leave a permalink to your own Kids Cooking Thursday post, as per the rules.


This was an entry for Kids Delight hosted by Spice Your Life for her first blogversary. I thought this was an apt dish to choose, because although all of my food is cooked for kids, it's only these weekly posts that have food cooked with my kids as well, a time spent together creating food (and mess) and memories.

Don't forget to think (and cook!) pink for the Virtual Night In, raising money and awareness for Breast Cancer Research.