Scooby Snacks - an experiment

Meet my 2-yr old daughter: She's loves "Soogie-Doogie" (Scooby Doo) & is crazy about our next door neighbors' dog, Charlie. 

Charlie deserves a special mention here because he is the stuff all bedtime stories, bribes and disciplinarian actions are made of: "finish your dinner & Charlie will come sit with you on the swing" or "Charlie thinks you look so pretty in that dress, please don't take it off" .. and "Ssh! Keep it down, Charlie's napping and we can't disturb him". 

Other than constantly trying to appease "Charlie-Doggie", much like Scooby & Shaggy, my little girl will do anything when bribed with food - especially the sweet kind. 

I try to keep the tendency in check, but a treat once in a while is okay. This week I wanted to do something fun so I searched online for ideas for a  'Scooby Snack'. All searches pointed to the recipe here.

I couldn't be sure if this recipe was actually for kids or meant for dogs. Walnut extract and ground herbal medicine? In a cookie? For kids? 

I don't think so. 

The base recipe sounded mostly like any other recipe for oatmeal cookies and so I decided to play around with it a little create my own version of a Scooby Snack. 

I have lost my sense of smell and taste (again!) so  had to rely on feedback from my 5-yr old. I followed the original recipe - substituting applesauce for the butter and adding hazelnut concentrated flavoring instead of walnut extract. The recipe didn't ask for any baking powder, but I added half a teaspoon, and added 1/4 cup of semi-sweet mini morsels. 

We made a test-batch of 5 cookies. The end result: So-so. 

My son said he could not taste any chocolate. So we went back, chopped up a bar of dark chocolate and mixed that into the batter. The second test batch received better reviews because of the additional chocolate. But I'm guessing, at best - these cookies are just okay. Not really outstanding in any way.

I will re-visit this recipe when I have more time. I'm sure there must be a way to improve it and don't regret having made it - it was a good way to divert the kids with a fun indoor activity while it rained this morning and they weren't able to go out to play. 

The next time around, I want to make a crispier cookie since that is how I always imagined Scooby's snacks to be. 

For now, here's the recipe (adapted from the original here):

Scooby Snack

2 cups, all purpose flour

1 cup quick cooking oatmeal

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup applesauce

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp hazelnut flavoring (concentrated)

approx. 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate mini morsels and a 100 g bar of dark chocolate, chopped )

Beat the applesauce, eggs, sugars and flavorings for a few minutes to blend. 

Add in the dry ingredients and blend well. This batter is very, very thick and you might want to add a tbsp or 2 of milk for ease in blending. I didn't, but I will try that next time. 

I scooped out and rolled 1/2 tbsp-sized balls, flattened a little and baked them for 6 minutes in my Bakery Express cookie mould (which is so good that it deserves a blog post dedicated to its review - I've been meaning to get to it and will soon). 

When baking in a regular oven, preheat to 350 and bake for 12  mins.

I-scream

My toddler woke up this morning and the first thing she said was: "I want ice-cweam".

I told her I didn't have any and my suggestion "Let's have cereal first and then we'll go down to the store and buy ice cream, ok?" was met with a full-blown  interminably long mother-of-meltdowns (yeah, welcome to terrible 2's).

However, she managed to calm down long enough to make it through breakfast. I really didn't want to go to the store till later in the evening but I try not to say things to my kids that I don't mean or make promises I won't follow through on. I had figured, I would just get the kids in the kitchen after breakfast and we'd make our own ice cream. 

Think again: no cream, not enough milk, no oreos (for their favorite cookies & cream ice cream). There was still no way I was going to go to the store. We just had to make do with whatever we had on hand. Which was basically nothing. And then it hit me: I could make banana ice cream. 

All I need for that is bananas. And this is also something I have known forever but never bothered to try: after all, why make banana ice cream when there are far more exciting (and possibly more palatable) things to make. Such as Nutella ice cream, for e.g. I'm still sulking over my inability to make Nutella ice cream the day before  by the way :( 

Beggars can't be choosers. Banana ice cream it would have to be. 

Homemade Butter

I've been too unwell since Friday night to actually either make it out of bed or get off the couch. Reason: extremely bad case of Rhinosinusitis & a throat infection. My sense of smell is completely gone, along with my sense of taste - can't even hear with my left ear. It's a wonder I'm functioning at all. 


It's rather disconcerting not to be able to smell or taste anything. I've even tried to jump-start my taste buds by dolloping heaped teaspoons of that Habanero sauce on top of everything I'm eating. But food still tastes like sawdust.


Since I'm unable to stay on my feet for too long & my children need entertainment, I've had to create activities I could either engage in or observe from my permanent position on the couch. 


Today we decided to make homemade butter. It's ridiculously easy. 


I read about how to make it a long time ago & couldn't believe it would actually work so I was just about as surprised as my 5 yr old when we sat around shaking a large Tupperware container half-filled with whipping cream and came up with actual butter in less than 10 minutes!