Today’s Cooking Series are introduced to you by Leanna @ All Done Monkey!
Leanna is a stay at home mother to a sweet, funny, rambunctious three year old boy and his adorable, smiley baby brother. She draws inspiration from the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith and tries to raise her Monkeys in a fun, spiritual, loving environment. She and her husband, who is from Costa Rica, are raising their boys to be bilingual and bicultural but more importantly to be “world citizens.” Having studied anthropology, history, and library science, Leanna now trolls the internet and Pinterest for recipe and craft ideas. ”All Done Monkey” is her attempt to make sense of it all.
You can follow Leanna on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.
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At our recent spring/Naw Rúz party with Monkey’s little friends, I was looking for an easy treat that the kids could help make. I wanted something sweet but not too sugary, so we wouldn’t have the kids bouncing off the walls. (Okay, they did that anyway, but at least the sugar wasn’t to blame!)
I remembered making fruit pizzas years ago with my sister, so I decided to come up with a my own version for little ones.
For the base, I modified a recipe for a homemade fig bar, skipping the filling and making oversized cookies instead. For the toppings, I went with sweetened cream cheese and fruit.
The kids (and the adults!) had fun making and munching on these “pizzas.”
You Will Need:
Makes approx. 10 pizzas
One batch of the dough from this Homemade Fig Bars recipe from Weelicious
One 8 oz. block of cream cheese (you actually don’t need the full amount, but the leftovers are wonderful!)
Honey to taste
Squirt of lemon juice
Cut up fruit (I used strawberries, kiwis, and bananas)
Instructions
To be done ahead of time
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Make the cookies. Older kids can help with this step. Follow the instructions for the dough in the Fig Bars recipe. Before cooking, form the dough into cookies approx. 5 inches across. (I used a piece of wax paper to help me press the dough into the cookie shapes). Bake slightly less than the time in the recipe, approx. 9 minutes, depending on your oven.
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Make the cream cheese topping by whipping cream cheese with the honey and lemon juice. Refrigerate until ready to use.
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Cut up the fruit into bite-sized pieces
At the party
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Have each child spread the cream cheese on a cookie, then top with the fruits. Let them get creative with decorating the cookies!
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Enjoy – mmm!
If the children will be doing this activity throughout the course of a party, only set out a portion of the cream cheese and keep the remainder in the refrigerator until ready to use. Although the cream cheese spreads more easily when it is warm, because of the dairy you don’t want it sitting out for a long time.
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Thank you for this recipe! It looks really tasty and like tons of fun for the little ones!!!