Have you and the kids been out sledding and need a warm and easy (healthy) snack to warm you up again? Mmmmm… baked apples! This quick and easy recipe is a surefire hit with kids. Here’s how:

Baked Apple Recipe

Ingredients and supplies needed to make a baked apple:

• Bowl
• apple
• knife
• cinnamon
• honey
• microwave
• vanilla ice-cream and a spoon

Wash and core the apple with a knife making sure you keep your apple whole. Place the apple in a microwaveable bowl and drop a dollop of honey in the cored area of the apple. Sprinkle with cinnamon. ‘Bake’ in the microwave for approximately one minute or until soft and cooked through. You may find you need to rotate the apple part way through for even cooking.

Add a scoop of ice cream on top of your apple and serve! (Careful, it’s hot!)

My daughter was surprised and delighted by this recipe and has shared it with all her friends. It’s so easy I’m not sure why we don’t think to make it more often.

Have you made baked apples? Do you have variations on this recipe?

An easy recipe for kids. A chocolate log (or vanilla) that you can make lactose free. We made ours a caterpillar. What will yours be?

How to Make a Chocolate Log

Food fun for kids! Does it get any better than playing with whipped cream and cookies? I don’t think so! This is a super-easy recipe for kids (and adults, too).

You will need thin wafer cookies. (In the photo above we used Mr. Christie chocolate wafers for one log and the Vanilla Wafer cookies for a second, smaller log. See boxes below.) And you will need whipped cream. And… that’s it. Unless you want to add sprinkles, etc. to decorate your log when it is done.

Chocolate Log

This is a pretty fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of a recipe. At least the way we make it. Mr. Christie has the recipe on his Chocolate Wafer box and it is lovely and particular, but here’s how we do it:

Slather great amounts of whipped cream between two chocolate wafers. Stick ’em together. Slather whipped cream on another wafer (one side) and stick it to the two you’ve got already. Keep going until you have a long line–a log of them. It’s going to be messy but it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Once you have your log made–we usually run off the edge of the plate before we run out of cookies–slather whipped cream over the log, covering it and making it all smooth. Pop the whole thing in the fridge for about 4 hours. You want the whipped cream to seep into the cookies and make them soft.

(To cover the log for refrigeration, I poke a bunch of toothpicks into the log about half way and lay the plastic wrap over the toothpicks–that keeps the plastic wrap off my log.)

Time to eat? Slice the chocolate log at a slight angle so you get a cool effect like shown on the Mr. Christie box as well as in my image.

The chocolate log is always best on the first day, but is still pretty yummy on day two.

Chocolate Log Modifications:

Sprinkles: The colour in the sprinkles will run and bleed a bit so you may want to add them just before serving.

No Chocolate: Use Vanilla Wafers instead–they are thicker so they aren’t going to get quite as soft, but they are a fun modification. (You may want to leave them in the fridge a bit longer so they aren’t crunchy. Aim for about 5 hours or more.)

Wreath Not a Log: One year I got creative (Mom usually has me make the log at Christmas) and I made a wreath and it worked out quite nicely. Very festive, but tricky to cut in a lovely manner.

Lactose Free: Use Nutri-Whip instead of whipped cream. The dessert ends up a touch sweeter, but it’s still lovely.

How about you? Have you made a log or have other great dessert recipes your kids love (to eat or make–or both!)?

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Seriously simple (2 ingredient) chocolate log recipe your kids will love to make! http://t.co/wavNUR8f #recipes #food

— Jean Oram (@KidsPlay) October 23, 2012

Play with your food.

Have You Played With Your Food Lately?

Go play with your food.

That’s right. I said it. It’s break the rules week here at It’s All Kid’s Play and this is a nice, fun place to start!

And if you need some inspiration… how about:

Spaghetti. Slurp it.

Milk. Blow bubbles in it.

Gargle it.

Swish it between your teeth and then back into your glass. (GROSS!) Or at your brother. Or if you want to really shock your kids–at them!!! Your pick.

Orange wedges or cucumber slices or tomato wedges to “brighten” your smile.

Kiwi eyes like pictured above.

Mashed Potato Volcano. (Come on, we’ve all done it. Don’t deprive the next generation!)

Spaghetti noodle mustache.

See Food. (Chew your food (don’t swallow) and then ask your sibling if they want some “seafood.” Open your mouth, Voila–See Food.)

Pea shooter. Yeah. We’re talking food fight! (You can also use your spoon to nicely fling peas a nice distance. Not that I know that from experience… oh, who am I kidding?

I remember my parents letting my brother fling peas at each other at the table once. It was like… really? We aren’t getting in trouble for this? All right!!!!! Game on! (And yes, we cleaned up the peas afterwards without being asked.)

And then there was the time my brother chased me through the house with half-rotten crab apples from our orchard. Yeah. That made a mess. And boy did I run fast. Who wants to get hit by hard, gushy crab apples being whipped at you? Not me!! Our basement walls were stained for years. Strangely us feral children didn’t get caught doing that nor did the after effects get pinned on us. Strange. I guess Mom and Dad had bigger fish to fry in those days. (Or maybe it was because we lived in an old school so a few crab apple stains weren’t exactly obvious.)

Go have a food fight, and if you want, share your best food fight stories in the comment section below. We’ll relive our childhoods and live vicariously through each other. And… go!

This is a great activity for a rainy day or for birthday parties. Kids decorate the cupcakes and then eat them! Yum!

What you will need to decorate cupcakes:

You don’t need much. Just cupcakes (cake mix and muffin tins works great if you don’t want the work of baking them from scratch), icing (canned icing is fine–some of it even tastes like icing), and goodies to decorate!

Some ideas for toppings include cookies, licorice, chocolate chips, sprinkles, small candies like Smarties, Reeces Pieces, and M & Ms. Check out the bulk candy section in your local food store or use whatever is hanging out in your cupboards!

If you want to get fancy and try piping and decorating with icing, you can use a plastic bag as an icing bag. Fill bag with icing and close the bag. Trim one corner of the bag so you have an opening and squeeze the icing out wherever you want it.

As well, use food colouring to brighten up your icing. Also, check out the small tubes of icing designed for decorating cakes–found in the baking aisle. (They can be a bit pricey though. Kids do love them though!)

Experiment! Have fun! Gooooo crazy!

But most of all…

Play on and enjoy!

Make this a family activity: See what your family does with the same food.

This activity promotes creativity.