Kid-friendly baking recipes from Kate Berry

Kate Berry has spent most of her life making and collaborating, whether working as creative lead in ad agencies in Melbourne, Sydney and London, photographing for Frankie, Smith Journal, Spaces and Yen magazines, running sell-out music events with OK Motels, or designing for brands. But she found that once she had school-aged children, her life switched to a new calendar. "It's no longer January, February, March, April. It's now a cycle of school terms," she says.

Kate's love of food, design and photography come together in Family, Food & Feelings, with simple dishes to cook for, and with, your family throughout the year, along with stuff you can do with your kids.

Sweet jammy drops (raspberry jam drops)

When I was a kid, I'd go to a friend's house after school and her mum would make my brother and me an afternoon snack plate. The plate would have a selection of things, like creamed honey on Weet-Bix, cut-up apple, Vegemite on Vita-Weats (always with the little worms popping through the holes), and every now and then there were jam drops. To this day, all these things remind me of Pat, and when I get the chance to make my girls an after-school snack, I make them exactly the same things. Thanks for looking after us, Pat.

INGREDIENTS

100g butter, softened

½ tsp vanilla extract

115g (½ cup) castor sugar

100g (1 cup) almond meal

1 free-range egg

150g (1 cup) plain flour, sifted

100g (⅓ cup) raspberry jam

METHOD

1. Place the butter, vanilla, sugar and almond meal in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until pale and creamy. Crack in the egg and beat until combined. Fold through the flour with a wooden spoon until combined, then cover and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.

2. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan-forced). Grease and line two baking trays with baking paper.

3. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and place them 3cm apart on the prepared baking trays. Make an indent in the middle of each ball with your thumb, then spoon in about a teaspoon of jam. Cover and freeze for 15 minutes to firm up (or pop them in the fridge for one hour if you don't have room in your freezer).

4. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly golden.

5. Cool on the trays for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 20

Oranges forever (Flourless orange and ginger cake)

Our household does its best to eat by the seasons, which means my little fruit lover goes into a bit of a funk after the third week of oranges. And trying to convince her that mandarins are different is a fruitless exercise … OMG stop me. But seriously, months of enduring the never-ending parade of citrus can get a little tiring, even for the staunchest seasonal eater. But I have a solution. Whipped with almond meal, eggs and sugar, the citrus onslaught is transformed into one of our most loved cakes.

INGREDIENTS

2 oranges, washed

250g castor sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

6 free-range eggs

250g (2½ cups) almond meal

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground ginger

big handful of pecans (or your choice of nut)

METHOD

1. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add the oranges and boil for two hours.

2. Drain and cool to room temperature.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan-forced). Grease and line a 20cm springform tin with baking paper.

4. Place the sugar and eggs in a food processor and whiz until well combined. Add the oranges and continue whizzing until fully blended, then add the almond meal, baking powder and ground ginger and blend until smooth.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and sprinkle the top with extra sugar. Arrange the pecans in a nice pattern on top.

6. Bake for 1-1¼ hours or until the top is golden and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove and allow to cool completely in the tin.

Serves 8

Ruby fruit cake (Grapefruit and yoghurt cake)

Citrusy cakes are our favourite cakes, and the coolest thing about the ones we like to eat is that they're super easy to make. So easy the girls can whip these up without me hovering over them, which has been such a great learning experience for them, and perhaps more so for me. Learning to back off and let them go was such a hard thing to do, but now that they've mastered baking, I am finally reaping the rewards.

INGREDIENTS

350g (2⅓ cups) self-raising flour

1 tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp salt

finely grated zest of 1½ ruby grapefruits

2 large free-range eggs

250g (1 cup) Greek yoghurt

170g (¾ cup) castor sugar

125ml (½ cup) grapefruit juice

3 tbsp milk of your choice

80g butter, melted and cooled

For the glaze

125g (1 cup) pure icing sugar

2 tbsp grapefruit juice

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan-forced). Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.

2. Place the flour, cardamom, salt and grapefruit zest in a large bowl and whisk until combined. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, yoghurt and caster sugar. Stir in the grapefruit juice, milk and butter.

3. Pour into the flour mixture and gently stir together, taking care not to over-mix the batter.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 25-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Make the glaze while the cake is cooling. Combine the icing sugar and grapefruit juice in a small bowl until smooth and lump free.

6. Place a plate or baking paper under the rack to catch the glaze, then pour the glaze evenly over the cake. Allow to set for 5-10 minutes, then serve.

Serves 6-8

Edited extract from Family, Food and Feelings by Kate Berry, photography by Kate Berry, published by Plum, RRP $39.99.