Hiding Veggies in Baked Goods

[Jezebella]

I am nanny for two kids. They are four and two. I've recently started trying to hide vegetables in their food. I've had a lot of success with cooking. I've found that with anything with ground beef I can add a whole squash into the meat without them noticing. I mix vegetables into their tacos and chili, since you pretty much only taste the seasoning on those two dishes anyway. I haven't had as easy a time with baking, but I've heard it can be done. Does anyone have any good hidden vegetable recipes that they could share? I try to get them to just eat their vegetables, but for as long as it remains a major battle I want to give myself a vitamin edge by hedging my bets a little bit. Thanks!!

 

[undaunted]

You can always try to grind the veggies or chop them into really small pieces. Then, add it to the batter and cross your fingers that it tastes good. Oh! and there's lots of carrot cupcake/cake recipes. Those are really good.

 

[ACSAPA]

There are recipes on Pinterest for brownies and chocolate cake that have kale or zucchini in them. The trick seems to be pureeing them so the kids don't taste any vegetable pieces.

 

[btatro]

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Black-Bean-Brownies/

Black bean brownies! So fantastic, used to make them with the kids in my nutrition group

 

[Soliloquy]

I'm an adult and I love this idea. There's a recipe for meatloaf I like in the American Heart Association's Heart Healthy cookbook that contains a lot of carrots. (Only these days they keep selling carrots with more and more sugar in them, and sweeter carrots in this meatloaf just taste weird.)

There's always the old standby, chocolate zucchini cake.

 

[Babble64]

I know my sister in law used to shred carrots and put them into pancakes for her kids. She must have had to soften the carrot shredding first, though, or they wouldn't have cooked up right. And she must have passed the color off as some kind of fun to my niece and nephew.

And then there was my sister who put cooked green beans inside a PB&J sandwich...and somehow her daughter didn't notice!!

 

[Becky]

Some great suggestions here! Another one is mushrooms really finely chopped with ground beef (my mum used to do this and we could never tell!)

 

[Marie]

I once made a Butternut Squash cake; I think I just used a basic sponge recipe and added the squash (peeled, chopped, cooked to soften it and mashed), but never wrote down the recipe. It actually tasted pretty good, surprisingly sweet flavour. I'm sure you could find something online of the same idea.

I've also seen recipes for Courgette (Zucchini) Cake, but I've yet to be that brave to try any..! I regularly make a Chocolate Beetroot Cake though, which is really moist, slightly reddish-brown in colour, and you can hardly taste the beetroot at all. If you'd like the recipe, just ask and I'll post it somewhere or send it as a message.

 

[Jezebella]

Beets are incredibly hard to get them to eat so I would love that recipe. I am attempting a gluten free zucchini bread next week. Wish me luck! I've found that butternut squash is sweet enough to easily be hidden in a lot of different foods. I even put a spoonful or two in their oatmeal in the morning.

 

[Marie]

I found it! I first saw it in a Morrison's magazine, but I modified it somewhat.. but I've just been through all my magazines and recipes.. I think I need a better way to organise everything; it's taken me hours!

Anyway, the recipe:

Beetroot Chocolate Cake
(Serves 12, apparently..)

225g self-raising flour
79g cocoa
200g demerara sugar
150ml sunflower oil
300g cooked beetroot
3 large eggs
3 tbsp milk

To Decorate:
200g white chocolate, broken up
300g low-fat soft cream cheese
25g grated chocolate / chocolate curls

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line the base of a 20cm round cake tin and lightly brush the sides with a little oil.
2. Sift the flour and cocoa into a large mixing bowl and stir in the sugar.
3. In a food processor, blend together the oil, beetroot, eggs, and milk and pour over the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly
4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level with the back of a spoon. Bake for 40 mins until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
5. To decorate, melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat, then beat well with the cream cheese.
6. Spread the mixture over the sides and top of the cake, roughing it up with a palette knife. Scatted grated chocolate / chocolate curls over the top and cut into wedges to serve.


(I use sunflower oil instead of butter to make it lower in saturated fat.)
You can freeze the cake, but only before it's been iced.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes, and don't forget some piccies!

 

[Jezebella]

Wow! Thank you for all of the effort. I really appreciate it. That sounds delicious. I'm hoping it will work out well. It is hard to keep recipes in order. I don't have a very good system either. I move a lot so I have lost some recipes every move.

 

[Marie]

It's no problem at all; glad I could help.
I've lost track of how many recipes have gone missing (stolen by the baking-fairy no doubt!) over the years and I've just had to Google another recipe and use that instead.. :/

 

[mj512]

I hide veggies in pancakes since my little girl loves pancakes. She can never tell the difference. The easiest for me was shredded zucchini and all I did was add it right to the batter. You could also try shredded carrots.

 

[zlemune]

Yes! Zucchini bread and carrot cake are the best. The pancake ideas are nice too, and topping them with fruit gives you bonus points.

One thing my mom used to do was add pureed sweet potato into our mac & cheese. I guess that would really work with any veggie you can blend in there

 

[jodiann12]

You can try the cauliflower chocolate cake, which I first found on Pinterest. The recipe is at this link, right here: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/06/18/cauliflower-chocolate-cake/ You can substitute the cauliflower with 1 can of pumpkin. You can also try the cauliflower crust pizza at this link: http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2013/08/cauliflower-crust-pizza/

 

[zlemune]

You can try the cauliflower chocolate cake, which I first found on Pinterest. The recipe is at this link, right here: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/06/18/cauliflower-chocolate-cake/ You can substitute the cauliflower with 1 can of pumpkin. You can also try the cauliflower crust pizza at this link: http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2013/08/cauliflower-crust-pizza/

Wow, okay I gotta try this. I believe it's possible but can't quite grasp how it works

 

[dreamseer]

This isn't really a "baking" idea, but more of a "cooking" one. My 2 year old loves spaghetti, so I have taken mixed vegetables and boiled them till they were soft, then put them in the blender. When you mix them into the spaghetti sauce, you can't even tell they're in there!

 

[zlemune]

Adding to the beet and pancake suggestions so far, I ran across this recently;

They look like the sort of thing kids would enjoy for the color as much as anything, they'd look great with banana slices for contrast maybe?

 

[justusforus]

You can shred carrots and squash and bake it in meatloaf and no one seems to notice other than it makes the meatloaf moister (and more nutrictious). You could also try juicing where you can put apples and pears with carrots and around here the kids love it. Also consider home made pot pies chock full of veggies. Kids generally love the crust and gravy and will eat what is inside pretty much. Good luck!

 

[JessiFox]

I hate to sound preachy when that's not what anyone's asking for, but I hate the whole hiding vegetables business. True, it can easily be done and may seem to help in the short term; but as far as the kids are concerned, they're not eating vegetables and so they're not actually learning or modeling healthy eating habits that will stay with them long-term.

That being said, in regards to both baking and cooking it's generally pretty easy to sneak some veggies in. From breads/muffins with veggie bases (zucchini being the obvious one, but not the only) to fruity tasting smoothies with vegetable flavors masked.