I am using a fan forced oven, as most ovens are fan forced in Australia. My oven has temperatures in degrees celsius. Most of my recent recipes also have the temperatures in Fahrenheit, but for some of the older ones it’s a work in progress. If you need to convert a temperature, you can use this free converter.
Often, recipes take a different amount of time to cook than the recipe states. That can be because your oven doesn’t heat as efficiently, or because it might not quite be accurate. Just keep an eye on the recipe whilst cooking.
The most important tool you can have for testing baking is a skewer. If it comes out clean...you're good!
Self raising flour is flour with a leavening agent (normally baking powder) already in it. If you don’t have any the ratio is one cup of plain flour to 2 tsps of baking powder.
Coconut oil is a favourite here, but you can swap it for the same amount of melted butter or another low taste oil, like rice bran.
There are a lot of ways you can substitute eggs in a recipe. Of course, in something like an omelette, you can’t really swap out the eggs. But otherwise, you generally can. Some options include making a chia egg (1 teaspoon chia seeds and 2.5 teaspoons water mixed and left for 5 minutes), using pureed apple, pureed banana, making a flax egg (same as chia but with flax seeds).
I have lots of gluten free recipes, but some haven’t been tested as gluten free. I can’t guarantee something will work for you if you make it gluten free, things like that take a little experimentation!
Butter can be swapped for melted coconut oil and most milks can be swapped for rice milk or soy milk. Yoghurt can often be swapped for coconut yoghurt. These ingredients can all behave differently, so might require a little adjustment.
Both of my kids swap between the yumbox panino and the yumbox original or a little lunchbox company bento 3 or bento 5.
For recess they each use a yumbox minisnack or my son has a little lunchbox co bento 2. For crunch and sip they both use a fuel snack and dip.
We have a few, we love the soyoung bags as they are washing machine safe. We also use a medium fridge to go, and the new yumbox ones which hold even a tapas.
For ice packs, we use either medium fridge to go panels, or decor icewalls.
Food processor: kitchenaid pro
blender: kitchenaid
slow cooker: cuisinart 6.5l
ricecooker: philips
coffee machine? we have a commercial one
Pretty much everything. Muffins, muesli bars, meatballs, pasta, scrolls, biscuits. There’s not much from the blog you can’t freeze.
Generally speaking, I freeze flat on a tray and then transfer to freezer bags or containers once solid. I find this means that nothing sticks together and it is easier to get out. Dinners I freeze in portions, either in microwave containers or oven dishes. I freeze kid size pasta dishes etc in the weanmeister adorabowls.