Christmas Damper with Guacamole

Challenge 11 in our 12 Days of Christmas DIY Challenges is to make a healthy Christmas snack using ingredients you have in your house.

I chose to make super simple Damper (like scones) and added a fresh guacamole dip which complemented the dampers really well!

Damper Recipe

Damper has to be one of the easiest things to make ever. All you have to remember is 2 cups of Self Raising flour.  Then add whatever ingredients you want and mix to a dough using milk! Shape into rounds, flatten and bake at 200C (400F) for 20 minutes.

I made 2 different kinds for this challenge. One was fetta, sundried tomato, chopped friend onion and fresh herbs.

The other was fried onion, salami, cheddar cheese and fresh herbs.

Rather than just shape the damper into rounds, I rolled it out a little and cut it into shapes using Christmas Cookie cutters.

I cut mainly star and bell shapes!

They looked and smelled so nice when they came out of the oven!

The fresh guacamole - I just cut up and mixed avocado, tomato and spring onion and added a little lemon juice to stop the avocado from discolouring.

The damper and guacamole tasted SO good together!

A great healthy Christmas snack I will be making again for sure!

Have you ever made a healthy Christmas snack? Or do you have an idea for one?  Please do link up your Healthy Christmas Snacks to our linky party here.
The party will stay open until Christmas so there's plenty time to get cooking and be inspired too!

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Each day a challenge will be set by means of a video and blog posts giving some suggested ideas and crafts. These posts will also contain a linky party for anyone and everyone who wants to join in to link up their projects - both past and present, that answer the challenge.  The linky party can be found on all our blogs and we'll  try and come up with different ideas and tutorials for the challenges too. So please do visit us all, and then share your ideas with us as well! We're looking forward to seeing how these challenge are met!

Ready, Steady....Let's Christmas Craft!

The 12 Days of Christmas DIY Challenges is brought to you by

Jill @ Creating my way to Success
Vicky @ Vicky Myers Creations
Anna @ Tea and a Sewing Machine
Pam @ Threading My Way
Anne @ Domesblissity

Previous Challenges
Challenge 1 - Upcycle old clothes to Christmas Decoration
Challenge 2 - Make a Christmas Gift from a pair of old jeans
Challenge 3 - Make a fun Christmas snack - use what you've got
Challenge 4 - Make a Christmas Card from a cereal box
Challenge 5 - Make a Christmas Decoration from something in your shed
Challenge 6 - Use Fabric Scraps to make some Gift Wrapping
Challenge 7 - Use something from your garden to make a Christmas Decoration
Challenge 8 - Make Christmas Decorations from Chip Packets
Challenge 9 - Make something to wear for Christmas using what you have in your house
Challenge 10 - Make a stocking filler gift from Fabric Scraps
Challenge 11 - Make a Healthy Christmas Snack from foods you have in your house

Mini Sundried Tomato and Fetta Dampers or Scones

In trying to find more lunch box snacks for my girls this year, I've started making these super simple 'Mini Dampers' which are a big hit.

Damper is a traditional Australian bread cooked on a camp fire with just basic ingredients. The very basic damper would be flour with butter rubbed in then mixed to a dough with water or milk and then baked in a large round. 

To me, this is basically a simple scone recipe like I grew up with in England - although we didn't cook scones on a fire and generally they were cut into smaller pieces rather than one large round.

So anyway, this recipe you could call a type of Damper or Scone.  It uses fetta cheese instead of butter and adds the extra flavour of sun-dried tomatoes, basil and onion.

Ingredients

2 cups Self Raising flour 

1 onion chopped and lightly fried

5 or 6 sundried tomatoes

1 cup fetta, crumbled

handful of basil leaves chopped

milk to mix (approx 1/2 cup)

Method

Preheat oven to 200C (400F)

Sieve the flour then add the onion, tomatoes, most of the fetta and the basil. Gradually add milk and mix until a soft dough is formed. 

Knead lightly on a floured surface.

Divide into 8 portions, shape into rounds and place on a baking tray.

Mark a grid - like a noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) grid on the top of each one and sprinkle with remaining fetta.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

These really are best enjoyed warm from the oven, but also keep a couple of days in an airtight container and make great lunch box snacks!

I like to cut mine open to eat!

Yum!

You could add really anything you like to these mini dampers - use butter instead of cheese, and substitute anything you like for the sundried tomato and basil - pumpkin, zucchini, other herbs, or even something sweet like sultanas or dates.

What kind of snacks do you put in your kids lunch boxes? I'd love some new suggestions and recipes to try with my kids!

Cheesymite Scrolls - an Aussie Snack!

I don't usually post recipes, but I do like to share snippets of my life in Australia - and this is one of those snippets!

These scrolls are a favourite snack for my girls - and I like them myself too!

We used to buy them from the bakers as a treat, but then I found a recipe and now I make them most weeks and the girls get them in their school lunch boxes!

I'm not sure where I got the recipe from - I still have it written on a scrappy bit of paper (must get a round to writing it in my recipe book!!)

I thought I'd share the recipe here - a good Australian snack! What makes it Australian? The addition of this..

Cheesymite Scrolls

1. Mix 1 cup water and 1/2 tsp yeast until there are no lumps.

2. Add 25g melted butter, 1/4 cup milk, 5tsp sugar and 1tsp salt. Mix

3. Sift 3 cups flour in and mix, keep adding until dough loses most of its stickiness. Turn out and knead for 10 mins.

4. Put the ball of dough into a greased bowl.

Cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place for about an hour.  It should rise and look like this:

5. Roll the dough out into a large square.

6. Here's where it gets Aussie!! 

Spread with Vegemite and cover with grated cheese.

7. Roll carefully into a log and using a very sharp knife, cut into slices and place on a greased baking tray.

8. Cover with a damp tea towel again for around an hour and they should rise some more to look like this:

9. Bake in oven 200C  (395F) for 15 mins.

10. Enjoy your Cheesymite Scrolls!!  Yum!