Drawing a car carrier

S just turned 4 when he drew this car carrier last month. He selected his own picture and did the drawing on his own, with no help or comments from me.

"I want to draw this car carrier"

Deep in concentration

The finished drawing. 

Never mind that there wasn't any wheels at the bottom of the car carrier. I didn't even noticed that, until my father brought it to my attention. He always has a critical eye with regards to drawings / paintings, and used to comment on my artwork, when I was young. Trust him to look upon the hole, and not the donut. For a four-year old's standard, I'm pretty proud of S' drawing, and the fact that he could fit everything proportionately into an A4-sized paper. 

Healthy Wholemeal Cookies

I made some wholemeal cookies two days ago. This was the first time I ever attempted cookies from scratch. I once bought a box of  cookie pre-mixed flour and just needed to put in the water and egg, but I found it way too sweet and 'buttery'.  I had a large packet of wheatbran lying in my fridge and was wondering for ways to utilise it, instead of just in making bread. I searched online for recipes of wholemeal cookies, found many quite complicated to do, until I chanced upon this website for Nestum cookies. This was the easiest recipe to make cookies that I ever found. I modified the recipe a little.

I used the following ingredients:

250g wheat flour (tepung gandum)
140g Butter (I lessened the butter content)
100g Fine Sugar (I lessened the sugar content)
A cup of milk
2 Eggs
A teaspoon Rose Essence (since I didn't have any other essence)

3 tablespoons of the following:

Wheatbran

Nestum

Pumpkin seeds

Fast cooking oats


I mixed the ingredients with an electric hand mixer. However, I found the flour still a little sticky and soft. I added in some rice flour, a tip given by my mother. I wasn't sure whether it would turn out alright as this is the first time I've ever attempted it. S helped me to press the round balls of flour with a fork, to make it flatter with some patterns. Finally, I added chocolate sprinkles at the top (S wanted chocolate sprinkles, so I went out and bought them). Then I put it in the oven at 150 degrees celcius.  I had to turn the cookies upside down after the top part is golden brown, in order to bake it on the underside, as it was still a little soft at the bottom. 

Here's how it looks like after baking, which I feel is not bad, for a first timer who's not used to baking. I think that this cookie is healthier (since there are a lot of grains in the cookie) than the store ones that are sugar, colouring and preservative laden. 

The completed cookies

The cookie jars

Mmmmm, yummy!!

The boys loved it!

S can now tell me the recipe for making this cookie. I used the cookie as a motivator (the carrot approach), to get them motivated to do things. Especially in getting S motivated to wake up after his sleep / nap and have his breakfast / teatime.