Fruity Fingers

These taste absolutely blinding and happily contain no refined sugar so they are a very healthy treat for little bears!  Refined sugar is bad because it sends our blood sugar levels sky high in an instant (unlike naturally occurring sugars like those found in honey and fruit juice) whilst containing no vitamins, minerals or nutrients.  Freshly squeezed orange juice is best as it won't have any refined sugar added to it - you can squeeze it out the orange yourself and know exactly what's in there!

Prunes are dried plums (which makes them sound much nicer!) and contain high levels of vitamin A (good for eyes, skin, hair and growth), B and C as well as fibre, magnesium, calcium, potassium, protein and carboyhdrate. 

Makes about 20 fingers depending on size you cut them into.

Ingredients: 120g/4oz butter, Juice of 4 Oranges, 2 Free Range Eggs, beaten, 250g/8oz grated apple or carrot, 2 Bananas, mashed, 180g/6oz Self Raising Flour, 120g/4oz Dried Prunes (with no stones) chopped into slivers.

Method: Preheat oven to 200'C/ 400'F/ Gas Mark 6.  Place butter, orange juice, eggs and flour in a mixing bowl and blend together using an electric whisk.  Fold in apple/carrot, bananas and prunes.  Add a little flour if need be until spoon stands upright in mixture.  Turn into a square cake or brownie tin and level.  Bake until golden, about 25-35 minutes.  A skewer will come out clean when ready.  Cool slightly before scoring into fingers.  Allow to cool completely then divide into fingers using a sharp knife.

Banana Muffins

Just got a brand new muffin tray and silicone muffin cases from Lakeland so thought I would try out some healthy muffins that we could eat and Ethan could try too.  These are lovely and moist and went down a storm.  Obviously the more ripe the bananas the sweeter the muffins.  The bananas I used were still quite firm but tasted great anyway.

Makes 12 generous muffins.  Up to you how much you let baby have!  

Ingredients: 5 bananas, 1 egg, 100ml milk, 100ml apple juice, 200g self raising flour, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp baking powder.

Method: Preheat the oven to 200'C/400'F/Gas Mark 6.  Mash the bananas in a bowl til there are no lumps.  Beat the egg and add to bananas. Add milk and juice and mix well.  Fold flour, cinnamon and baking powder into banana and liquid mix.  Spoon mixture into muffin cases in a 12 case muffin tin.  Bake for about 20 minutes until browned and cooked through (if you prick with a fork it should come out clean).  Remove from oven, lift muffins from tin and cool on a wire rack.

These hold together really well so are a good snack to take with you when going out with the buggy or to a friends house.