cooking with kids

Three Easy Makes for Valentines Day

February 8, 2016 by Anne Sweet 13 Comments

We don’t normally celebrate Valentines Day, we think that you should show how much you love someone every day! However, the kids are already talking about it so I thought I’d let them do some Valentines Day makes and have some fun. Any time they spend away from the screens is a bonus.

My Little Man is always saying I love you this much and stretching his hands as wide as possible, so I thought that this idea was perfect for him.

I Love You This Much Card.

First we took a piece of card and the Little Man drew around his hands. He chose corrugated card which was not ideal but it was his make so I went ahead. It was difficult to write on though.

I cut out the hands for him…again, if he had not wanted corrugated card he probably would have been able to cut them out himself.

The next step was to write ‘This Much’ on a strip of paper and then fold it concertina like.

Then I wrote ‘I Love You on the front of one of the hands

Finally, the little man glued the strip to the back of each hand and joined them together.

You gotta love him 🙂

The next project was a bit tastier!

Chocolate Sweethearts

These are really simple and tasty. Boo helped me to make them.

Ingredients:

200g white chocolate

some sprinkles

chocolate M&Ms or similar

a heart shaped chocolate mould.

Method:

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot (not boiling) water

Into the chocolate mould pour a few sprinkles and add a couple of m&m’s

Pour the melted chocolate over the treats and leave to set.

Finally we finished with some biscuits:

Strawberry Heart Biscuits.

Ingredients:

50g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

300g plain flour

1 egg

1 tsp strawberry flavouring

pink food colouring

heart shape cutter

Method:

Mix together the butter and the sugar

Add the colouring and the strawberry flavouring

Add the flour and rub into the mixture until you have a breadcrumb texture

Add the egg and mix unitl it all comes together.

Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour

Remove from fridge and roll out into about thickness of a pound coin

Use cutter to cut out heart shapes.

Bake for about 12 minutes at 170C/gas mark 5

Why not get the kids to decorate them!

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Baking with Bee Berrie and Happy Eggs

August 6, 2015 by Anne Sweet 17 Comments

My little chef Boo got a real birthday treat this year, a trip to London for a cookery lesson with the lovely Bee Berrie from Bees Bakery.

We travelled to London first thing in the morning and found our way to the cookery class which had been arranged by the Happy Egg Company. We got straight into the mixing and Boo was loving every minute.

Cookies

First she made some cookie dough, I have the recipe on my Kids in the Kitchen post.

Boo, loves being in the kitchen but this was a whole new experience for her and she was very excited. She always says that when she grows up she wants to be a chef, I guess there will be many more lessons like this for her in the future.

The cookie dough was wrapped in cling film and left in the fridge for later. When she fetched it back out it was split into three. She put some sprinkles on one third. As you can see this was very serious work. Then the dough was rolled into little balls and our first batch of cookies was baked.
The second section of dough was flavoured with ginger, cinnamon and treacle to make gingerbread cookies, and the third was rolled in sprinkles and put back in the fridge for us to cook at home. The sprinkle cookies were well received by the whole family and we’ll be making them again and again I’m sure.

Boo with really sticking fingers over a bowl of mixture

Baking can get messy! I think that’s why kids love it so much.

The Cake

While the cookie dough was in the fridge Boo’s second recipe was Bee’s All in One Cake.
Boo decided to make a chocolate cake.
She chose two loaf tins to bake it in and when it was time to decorate she made her butter cream icing a glorious blue colour. She made all these choices herself, which was nice for her because I usually tell her what she’s making. I’ve decided that I should let her make more decisions herself in the future, it’s a good learning experience for her.

Of course, every good chef always tastes their work in progress!

We had a really great morning and I have to thank Bee Berrie, Ellie and the Happy Egg Company for giving my Boo this fabulous opportunity.

Since becoming a Happy Egg Taste maker I have to say we use no other eggs now, they really do make a difference. ED makes the best omelettes ever tasted with them too.

Photos provided by the Happy Egg Co.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, let’s stay in touch, you can also find me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and I love following back.

Kids in the Kitchen – Baked Doughnuts

June 9, 2015 by Anne Sweet 2 Comments

Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen. This week eldest daughter needed to make doughnuts in a hurry. But doughnuts are not made quickly, the name gives it away, they are made of dough and dough needs to be left to rise for at least a couple of hours. Then I remembered that someone had submitted a recipe for baked doughnuts which were a lot quicker. A little search through the Kids in the Kitchen Pinterest Board I found the recipe on Autism Mumma’s Blog. They really are quick and easy doughnuts. Eldest Daughter was happy, but then Little Man wanted a go, so we made some too.

Last week on Kids in the Kitchen we were joined by The Brilliant Chef. This is one young man to look out for, I’m sure we’ll be eating in one of his restaurants in the future he has so much talent.
We were also joined by the lovely Skye from Mummy Plus Two Girls blog who made some scrummy looking Spider Man Cakes

Thank you for joining in. I can’t wait to see what everyone has been cooking this week.

Baked Doughnuts.

From Autism Mumma’s Blog;

Ingredients:

4oz self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2.5 oz of caster sugar
2.5 fl oz of milk
1 egg
1/2 tp vanilla extract
1oz melted butter

We made the doughnuts in a muffin tin so they did look more like muffins than doughnuts, but they still had that light fluffy doughnut taste, just less greasy than the deep fried ones.

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C/gas mark 5

Grease your muffin tin (or doughnut tin)

Sift together the flour and baking powder in a bowl, stir in the sugar

In another bowl, combine the milk, egg, vanilla extract and melted butter.

Make a well in your flour mixture and add the wet mixture

Mix well until smooth

Pour the mixture into the tin

Bake for 12-14 minutes until risen, golden and firm to the touch.

Decorate…we used a little icing made with icing sugar, pink colouring and water, and sparkle sugar

The Little Man hard at work

Mixing, mixing, mixing…it’s tough but someone has to do it!

The girls decided to help when it came to decorating.

The finished product! They look like cakes but taste like doughnuts.

So now it’s over to you, get in the kitchen with your kids and come and share what you’ve cooked,

I’d also be mighty grateful if you included my badge in your post so others can see it and come along and join in. (although adding the badge is not compulsory to joining in)

Kids in the Kitchen – Knickerbocker Glory

June 2, 2015 by Anne Sweet 3 Comments

Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen. It’s June already, time to start thinking of summer, although if today was anything to go by I think I’d rather not. We did have a nice sunny day over the weekend though and our tummies decided that ice cream would be a nice treat. So for kids in the kitchen this week, we made Knickerbocker Glory.

The new linky is open today and will stay open until the end of June. You can come and link up as often as you like throughout the month, come and share your recipes and kitchen escapades. There are no rules, just make your posts child friendly. I share posts on Pinterest where we have a fabulous board for inspiration. I also share on Twitter and give a little mention here on Kids in the Kitchen.

Follow Anne’s board Kids In The Kitchen on Pinterest.

Knickerbocker Glory

Boo asked us what a knickerbocker glory was and we told her it was a fruity ice cream served in a glass. She asked if she could make one, so how could we refuse?

Kinckerbocker Glory is traditionally served in a tall glass with a long spoon and decorated with a wafer. The ingredients seem to vary, so long as you include ice-cream. We didn’t have the long spoons, and silly mummy forgot to get the wafers (but then they never actually get eaten anyway) but we did have lots of fun making our version of the desert.

First we gathered our ingredients:

Raspberry ripple ice-cream

sliced strawberries

sliced peaches

sliced soft pears

chocolate sauce

sprinkles

Then we each took a glass and layered the ingredients as we wished.

We had lots of fun making our knickerbocker glories.

We also had lots of fun eating them.

And at least one of your five a day!

So now it’s over to you, get in the kitchen with your kids and come and share what you’ve cooked,

I’d also be mighty grateful if you included my badge in your post so others can see it and come along and join in. (although adding the badge is not compulsory to joining in)

Kids in the Kitchen – Fudge

May 26, 2015 by Anne Sweet 1 Comment

Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen and it’s the last one of the month. We love it when you join in and let us know what you’ve been up to in the kitchen with your kids. This week we made some fudge, but before I get on to our recipe I’d like to say thank you to those who linked up last week.

The girls from Mummy Plus Two Girls made a fantastic pizza with a smiley face. Kids always have loads of fun making pizza.

Over on Mummy of Two little Miss A made some Peppa Pig Muddy Puddle Cakes which look totally scrummy.

The linky is open for another week before we start a new one, so do come and join us and I’ll share your posts on Pinterest, Twitter and here on Kids in the Kitchen next week.

Fudge

Now this recipe is not entirely child friendly as it involves boiling a sugary liquid which will stick and burn. However, I found that if I did the hot part myself, there was plenty for my little chef to help with afterwards and she was really excited to be making her own sweets.

Ingredients:

397g can of condensed milk
150ml of milk
450g caster sugar
115g butter

Method:

Adult:

Put all the ingredients in a pan and melt slowly over a low heat

Bring to the boil and then simmer on medium heat stirring constantly so it doesn’t stick

Simmer for around 15 -20 minutes until the mixture reaches 118°C

You can check the temperature with a sugar thermometer or test the mixture by dropping a small ball into a glass of icy water and it should form a soft ball when squished.

Leave to cool for about 5 minutes.

Child:

Prepare a tin by lining it with greaseproof paper
Mix with hand mixer in the pan for about 5 minutes until thick, smooth and starting to set.
Poor mixture into tin and smooth the top
Leave to cool and set
Cut into chunks

So now it’s over to you, get in the kitchen with your kids and come and share what you’ve cooked,

I’d also be mighty grateful if you included my badge in your post so others can see it and come along and join in. (although adding the badge is not compulsory to joining in)