Make & Do

Easy Peasy Cheese Straws

 

This was a quick emergency idea I came up with when the baby was poorly and my 12 year old daughter was badgering me for something to eat! She completed the task herself, with only a few verbal instructions, and was even awesome enough to take some of the photos for the blog.

Jenn - you rock!

Ingredients

1 packet puff pastry

1" wide slice of mature cheddar cheese - grated (approx 2oz/50g)

sesame seeds

flour to dust worktop

Method

1. Roll the pastry out on a floured worktop.
   
2. Sprinkle some of the cheese over the pastry.
   
3. Fold the pastry over and re-roll the pastry out.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all the cheese is used up.
5. Sprinkle the top of the pastry with sesame seeds and use the rolling pin to press them slightly into the pastry.
   
6. Cut the pastry in half down the length, and then into strips.
   
7. Seperate the strips and carefully lift them onto a lined (or well greased) baking sheet.
   
8. Bake in the hot oven (200C) for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.
9. Leave to cool, then eat.
   

Biscuit Decorating

 

The hardest part of this activity is to persuade the toddlers to get the icing and sprinkles on the biscuits before eating them!

Buy a packet of plain biscuits (rectangular shaped biscuits like malted milk work well for Wubbzy), icing sugar, food colouring and chocolate chips/sugar strands/mini Smarties, etc for decoration. Plain chocolate chips make good Wubbzy eyes and nose, whilst halved white chocolate buttons can be used for his ears and mouth.

• Use about 3 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar to 2 - 3 teaspoons of hot water and a couple of drops of food colouring (This quantity is enough for approximately 10 biscuits.)
• Mix until smooth
• The consistency should be thick enough to spread on the biscuit but not runny enough so that it pours everywhere (similar in thickness to golden syrup
• I mix the icing in a tea-cup as my daughter finds it easier to hold something with a handle.
• Repeat these steps until you have all the colours you want
• Place a teaspoon in each cup and let the little one spoon the icing onto the biscuit. Use the back of the spoon to spread it around if needed
• Add sprinkles, sweets or chocolate chips - or all three.

Edible Dough Idea

 

My little girl loves baking and play dough, so I came up with this idea which combines the best of both activities. I started out making three small batches of a plain scone mixture but added a few drops of food colouring to the "add liquid" stage (Dr Oetker produce a natural colourings in red and yellow).

The plain scone mixture should be non-sticky when it is finished but very easy to mould and cut-out, just like play dough.

Once my little one had finished her creations I placed them on a baking tray and baked them in the oven just like regular scones. She was over the moon when she got to eat them for her lunch!

Basic Scone Recipe

Ingredients

• 8oz self raising flour
• pinch salt
• 1.5oz baking margarine
• milk to make a soft dough
• food colouring

Method

1. Mix flour and salt in a bowl
2. Rub in the margarine until it resembles breadcrumbs
3. Add a little milk (a couple of tablespoons to start with) and a few drops of colouring
4. Mix together. If the mixture is too dry a little more milk. If the mixture is not colourful enough add a few drops more colouring. If the mixture turns wet and sticky because you have added too much milk (or colouring!) then add in a little more flour until the mixture is no longer sticky. The mixture should be nice and soft to use but not leave any residue on your hands when you handle it.

Then just let the children have fun! We used a selection of cookie cutters, the favourites turned out to be the butterflies which they children added coloured spots to and the leaves which they mixed the colours together for to create a marble effect.

One thing to note, is that the dough needs to be fairly uniformly rolled out (preferably to about 1" thick) otherwise you will have to keep looking at the cooker because the thinner scones will need cooking for less time, whilst the thicker ones will need to cooked for longer so that the centres are cooked for thoroughly.

To Cook

When it looks as though the mixture is nearly used up, you will need to preheat the oven. It needs to be hot, so around Gas mark 7 (425f or 210c). Scones usually take around 10 minutes to cook, but this will change if you have a fan assisted oven (drop the temperature down a little according to the oven manufacturers guidelines) or if the creations are unusally thin or thick (thinner - less time, thicker - lower heat slightly and cook for longer).

Grease a baking sheet (or use a silicone liner if you have one) and place the scones one the sheet with a little room in between them, as they will rise when you bake them.