I hate the lunchbox rigmarole. I have a friend who is insanely organised. She has a weekly lunchbox meal plan, that she just rotates. That much structure freaks me out. Even thinking about it gives me a headache (in a jealous “I so wish I could do that” kind of way). As a result, every morning I run around like a headless chicken trying to work out what to give my fussy kids for lunch and recess to ensure some vague balanced meal requirements are being met.
Anyway, my latest thing is the bake up a batch of cupcakes once a week and stick them in the freezer.
Always a winner, eggless chocolate cupcakes with chia seeds. Surely the addition of Chia seeds makes them sorta-healthy?
Eggless chocolate cupcakes, with chia seeds
Ingredients
2 tbs chia seeds
6 tbs water
125gm dairy free spread (like Nuttelex)
¾ cup caster sugar
1 cup rice milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ cup cocoa
1 and ½ cups self raising flour
½ tsp bicarb
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Method
Preheat oven to 180degrees. Prepare a muffin tray with paper patty pan cases and give them a spray of oil to help with sticking.
Add the water to the chia seeds in a cup and mix together until it’s a glutinous mess. Set aside. (If you don’t want the crunch that comes with having chia seeds in your recipe, grind them down first with a spice grinder and then add to the water)
Cream together dairy free butter and caster sugar with electric mixers until creamy and smooth. Mix long enough so that the caster sugar starts to dissolve.
Add the chai seed mixture, vanilla essence and rice milk to this and mix in with a wooden spoon. I’ll confess, it looks a little alarming at this point, but persevere!
Add the sifted dry ingredients – cocoa, flour, bicarb and baking powder and salt to this mixture.
Mix together with a wooden spoon until smooth and combined.
Fill the patty cases ¾ of the way. The mixture is quite stiff.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of one comes out clean.
Leave to cool on a wire rack and then ice. I used a simple mixture of icing sugar, cocoa and water which makes the topping crack when you first bite into it.
Reflections from Middle Age 
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