Cooking with Kids: These easy recipes make the most of apple season – including yummy buns

Apple crumb spiced muffins with streusel topping on green pastel wooden table with napkin and honey

It is apple season. The shop shelves are filling up with this year’s crop and there are lots of ways to use them in the kitchen. Within the wide selection of varieties available, you can often find some unusually named local ones that have interesting tastes.

Making an apple tart is always a good way to use up the autumn glut of apples but these buns are also great.

The cinnamon gives them a nice autumnal touch and is not so strong it will put children off. They freeze well if you do not get a chance to eat them all.

Apples are very tasty in savoury cooking as well as baking, a mixture of their sourness and sweetness can really add to dishes.

The second recipe is for older children, as cooking with meat requires a little extra safety. Washing hands and always cleaning equipment after it has been used for raw meat is essential. It is also extremely important to check if it has thoroughly cooked and this is best done by an adult.

A meat thermometer can be used for this.

Apple buns

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

Making an apple tart is always a good way to use up the autumn glut of apples but these buns are also great

Servings

12

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 25 mins

Total Time

 45 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• 50g brown flour

• 200g self raising flour

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 100g caster sugar

• 4 tbsp of soft butter

• 125ml milk

• 2 eggs

• 2 medium sized apples

• 2 tsp brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4. Put 12 bun cases into a bun tin.

2. Put the brown flour into a bowl and then put the self-raising flour, the cinnamon and the baking powder into a sieve. Sieve them in on top of the brown flour by gently tapping the side of the sieve with a spoon. Mix them all together.

3. Put the butter into a saucepan and ask an adult to help you melt it.

4. Carefully pour the melted butter into a jug and add the milk and the eggs and stir them until everything is combined.

5. Carefully grate the two apples.

6. Add the liquid ingredients into the flour as well as the grated apple. Stir everything together with the wooden spoon.

7. Spoon the mixture between the 12 bun cases. Sprinkle the top of each bun with a little of the brown sugar.

8. Ask an adult to help you put the tray into the oven. Bake the buns for 25 minutes. They should be risen and golden looking.

9. Once the buns are cool enough to handle, place them onto a wire rack to cool.

Apple and chicken dinner

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

This recipe is for older children, as cooking with meat requires a little extra safety.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 35 mins

Total Time

 55 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 1 tbs olive oil

• 4 streaky rashers

• 2 red onions

• 2 springs thyme

• 4 boneless chicken thighs

• 200mls chicken stock

• 1 large apples

Method

1. It is extremely important to wash your hands well, before and after you cook with raw meat.

2. First you will need to cut up the rashers into pieces about two centimetres in size. Wash the chopping board and knife, or scissors, after you use them.

3. Carefully cut each onion in half and then cut each half into about six wedges. Cut the apple into wedges as well.

4. Ask an adult to help you heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Fry the pieces of rasher for about a minute then scoop them into a dish that you can put in the oven. Add the red onions and thyme to the oven proof dish as well.

5. Add the four chicken thighs to the frying pan and fry them for about four minutes turning them once. This is called browning and helps to keep the juices inside the chicken when it is roasting. Turn off the hob and carefully add the chicken to the oven proof dish.

6. Add the stock to the frying pan, you do not need to put it back on the hob for this, the stock simply takes the flavour from the pan. Pour this into the ovenproof dish.

7. Add salt and pepper and the apple wedges.

8. Cook for 35 minutes with the lid off. Ask an adult to make sure that the chicken pieces are completely cooked through. This nice served with potatoes or rice for dinner.

Activity: Apple science experiment

Have you noticed that after an apple is cut it starts to go brown pretty quickly. This is called oxidation. You can do an edible experiment to see what will stop this oxidation from happening, using salt, honey and lemon juice.

Take four apple slices. Place on a plate and do not add anything to it. We will use this to compare the other three. Stir a teaspoon of honey into a small glass of water. Do the same with a teaspoon of lemon juice and water and a teaspoon of salt and water. Label each glass. Place a slice of apple into each of the glasses and let them sit for a half an hour. 

Write down any observations about the difference in each apple slice, in the colour or texture. How do they each compare to the apple we left on the saucer? Why do you think the apples slices have reacted the way they have? Place the slices back into the correct glasses and compare them again in another half an hour. Have any of the ingredients prevented oxidization?