Kids Recipe Cards

I am and absolute fan of the British Nutrition Foundation's Cook Club resources, including these Primary Recipe Cards that come in various formats. There are also Secondary Recipe Cards which follow the same format but some more complex recipes.

 These recipe cards, with supportive pictures are ideal for older children, adults and just as a prompt.

They also have Action cards (and they have a lot)

How to  Cards

Equipment Cards

Ingredients Cards

Christmas Food

So tomorrow we are having kids Christmas Party lunch, so nice stuff made. Cookie Christmas tree (Not too much icing, you'll find out why in a mo)

Cranberry sauce made and in jars (a little organised me thinks)

Not quite finished chocolate cake, but look at the icing a little too much made (hence why all icing sugar used, had to keep adding. After decanting a bit off and adding a whole bunch more icing sugar the correct consistency was got - left. Im calling the other one sauce)

So anyone any festive ideas for chocolate butter icing and or sauce?

Ps. Icing sugar for Americans is actually powdered sugar

Oreo Turkeys

Ok so being in England, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving! Now it seems we've acquired all your other holiday's and customs (halloween, fathers day etc.) I'm surprised we haven't stollen this one and made it our own! Obviously we couldn't celebrate the for the reasons you guys do, but certainly the essence of thankfulness is never wasted! Anyway we celebrate Thanksgiving (American in law) and this year made these cute turkey lollies inpiration obtained by googling "oreo turkeys" but I settled on these being the most easy to emulate in large numbers (we had fifty + for dinner). I obviously used white chocolate buttons for feathers because candy corn is too expensive in England (glued in with chocolate icing), liquorice laces for legs (pretzels too fat for my oreos) and half a smartie for beak (oh an a small piece of liquorice for that nose thing). I iced the eyes.

These were last year's turkeys, again inspired by bloggers via google, but using crispy cakes (English twist again) and pretzels for feathers- but these were way toooooo fragile to make a lot of!

Photo Playdough Recipe

I have been meaning to make this recipe book for some time now, we have a lovely one we made YEARS ago and it's still going strong! However I wanted to be able to share it with others so have created this which can be downloaded as a PDF at TES (free joining). Here are all the pages:







Great for supporting independence, pre reading, sequencing and those with any communication difficulties, or who need visual prompts, particularly those with Autism to know the sequence and duration of an activity!

Independence Day

Well I'm not American, but I have a lot of friends! So here are cute cup cakes, in honour or should I say honor of the United States.

fishing cup cakes

This is a quick post, but star wars cup cakes reminded me of this little cakes I made spur of the moment a while back for another birthday tea!

Star Wars cup cakes

A quick post! Always utilise children's interests, and if if you get something out of it to then all the better!! Quick makes- for a birthday tea. Characters just drawn on rice paper with edible pens. I am reliably informed Luke does NOT have a red light saber that is only for the cif (spelt right?)

Recycled crayons (fish)

Well I have seen simply lovely up-cycled crayons in a host of wonderful shapes created by melting old wax crayons in silicone moulds. Well I thought this would be easy and despite the mould I used saying FOR WATER ONLY and it being an ice cube tray and NOT reading any instructions (thinking I'd seen crayons on numerous blogs using cute little ice cube moulds, like the ones at counting coconuts), what an klutz I put the ice cube tray in the oven do not do this I repeat DO NOT PUT ICE CUBE TRAY IN OVEN!!! I succeed very well at melting the tray quicker than even the crayons and boy did it smell, well done me. It would seem I'm not the only one Crafty Rachel did the same but hers didn't melt instead were ruined by dye. So moral of story READ next time, melt crayons then pour into mould OR use a silicone muffin tray NOT ice-cube tray. Then I may end up with some lovely crayons like the ones made by kitty garden makes

:( Sad melted tray. Pictures are being taken today by three year old, I was told it was his job (hence blurriness, angles and colour sorry)
Pushing out without breaking. One positive tip, plunge into cold water prior to pushing out lessens breaking.

We did get some crayons! Just need more practice!!!

Pound Land Presents

A brilliant gift on a budget. There is generally a good selection of cookie cutters, like this ginger bread family. To make the present look a little shabby chic, remove from packaging, tie cutters with a piece of ribbon and add a suitably themed label. Hey Presto, looks like you bought from a craft fair at a chunky price. Shhh

"I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue." Paul Getty

lollipops

Saw some fabulous lollipops on bird crafts blog, and

had a most wonderful evening attempting to recreate. Rather an unsuitable activity to do with little ones but they could decorate afterwards or you could make for parties, if you are ok about sugar overload. I'm just really excited about how they turned out, rather a mess not perfect circles like bird crafts but we did get better and I'm happy with the results.

"School is like a lollipop it sucks until it is finished" Anon

Child Friendly Recipes

I always attempt to allow children to be as independent as possible and when going shopping or making cakes I think independence and learning is optimised if children are fully involved through the use of pictorial lists and recipes. I usually draw these but occasionally collect photos or draw on computer for printing (usually for times I need to impress!!).

The above recipe is just perfect for a single child to make with very little adult input, making four cup cakes. I used a chocolate cake mix in this recipe but as long as it is this ratio of dry versus liquid it should work. When you use the microwave for cooking cakes is works best if you put paper cases into silicone cases to help the cakes hold their shape. Also microwaves vary and this is an average time (don't have on highest setting in a 700watt oven).

This is particularly good for pre/ emerging readers especially those with special needs, as it is clear, gives sense of achievement and is motivating. Have pictorial recipes in role play area too.

Some other pictorial recipes I have created are availible from TES resources section (you will need to register=free)

• Mincepies
• Stir Fry
• Pancakes
• Crispy cakes

"Omit and substitute! That's how recipes should be written. Please don't ever get so hung up on published recipes that you forget that you can omit and substitute." Jeff Smith