Picky eater

What do you do if your kid refuses to eat? He'd rather go to bed hungry than to eat his potatoes, rice, noodles or bread. He still needs to eat some carbohydrates for a well balanced diet.

 I turned to home made cookies as a last resort. Making the cookies myself, I made sure I put in a larger proportion of flour, with some whole meal flour for fiber and added vitamins, raw sugar instead of refined white sugar. The end result was a batch of cookies crispy on the outside but a little like heavy cake (more substance, less fluffy) on the inside. 

Using an oven toaster for baking

I had another problem. My oven was spoilt. It is too expensive to repair. All I had left was an oven toaster meant for grilling or reheating food. All the cookie recipes require a steady temperature of 175 degrees Celsius but I cannot control the heat setting on the oven toaster as there isn't any. I tried baking cookies anyway and my second attempt (with some modification to my initial recipe) was a success. Cookies turned out well. Crispy outside, substantial and well cooked on the inside. My kid loved them, and I'm relieved that at least he ate something relatively wholesome.

What you need

 An oven toaster with a tray for baking or grilling.

For the flour mixture, you need

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup whole meal flour (for the fibre, texture and nutrients)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sodium bicarbonate

For the batter, you need

1 stick butter

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

3/4 cup raw sugar (better than refined white sugar anytime)

Added treat for the kid

1/2 cup of chocolate chips to make it even more appealing to the kid.

How to make the cookies

1. Sift the plain flour, sodium bicarbonate and salt together.
2. Stir in the whole meal flour. Set aside this flour mixture.
3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and raw sugar. You can use an electric mixer for it but after that, Stir with a spoon to make sure that all the butter and sugar are well mixed.
4. Add the vanilla essence and mix some more. (either with a spoon or a mixer)
5. Add the egg and continue beating the mixture.
6. Stir the flour mixture into the batter 1 tablespoonful at a time. (You could leave the mixer on as you spoon the flour mixture in.
7. Add the chocolate chips and stir in well so that they are evenly distributed
8. Grease the baking/grilling tray with butter
9. Drop half a tablespoon of batter on the tray for each cookie that will be baked. Make sure you space them out. I usually bake 6 cookies per tray in my oven toaster.
10. Toast in the oven toaster for 4 minutes. Switch off the oven toaster but leave the cookies in the toaster for another minute if you want them to brown some more.
11. Take out to cool and serve warm. My kid eats them right out of the tray once they are cool enough for him to hold.
12. Keep the rest of the batter in the bowl, cover the bowl with a cling film and store in the fridge. Bake on demand. I kept mine for 3 to 4 days in the fridge.