Kids Kraft: Chocolate Refridgerator Cake

You will need:

~ Ingredients ~

175g unsalted butter (chopped into small chunks)

150g chocolate (broken into pieces)

2 tablespoons of golden syrup

250g digestive biscuits

200g cherries (cut into quarters)

~Equipment~

Prep; knife, chopping board, scales

Microwave safe bowl

Wooden spoon

Polythene bag & tea towel

Rolling pin

Greased baking tin (aprox 20cm x 30cm)

What to do:

1. Put the butter and chocolate in a microwave proof bowl and zap it for 60 seconds.  Stir with a wooden spoon and cook in microwave for a further 60 seconds. Stir with a wooden spoon.  The butter and the chocolate should have melted by now - if it hasnt keep cooking on 30second intervals until it has.  Add the golden syrup and stir until it is all mixed in together.

2.  Place the biscuits in a polythene bag and cover with a tea towel, then crush them with a rolling pin.

3.  Add the biscuit crumbs to the wet mix and stir until all the crumbs have been coated.  Add the cherries and mix them well.

4. Spread the mixture into a greased baking tin and press down with the back of the spoon.

5.  When the mixture is completely cool, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 2hrs.

6.  When the cake has set cut it into squares.

7.  Enjoy your cake!!

*Try swapping/combining the cherries with raisins, nuts or mini marshmellows - let your imagination run free.

*Try using different chocolate for differnent colours and taste, or combine 2 mixes to create swirls in the baking tin.

*After cutting you could package them up into boxes or bags and give away as gifts

*If you have really small children the adult could do all the cutting up beforehand, then the rest is pretty much safe for the little ones to do by themselves; although the mixture shouldn't get hot I do recomend that an adult takes the mixture out of the microwave.

My daughter made this at school and then came home with the recipe to make it again.  We have to take a picture, print it off and send it back in to school.  Both my daughter (6) and my son (3) stood on steps at the counter and made it together - yet again I forgot to take photos so we're going to make it again closer to Christmas so we can wrap the squares up and give them away as gifts.

TOODLE PIPS

x♥x

Kids Kraft: No Sew T-shirt Cushion Tutorial

We made 4 of these t-shirt cushions over the weekend - they really are that easy and require no sewing what-so-ever!!  Unfortunately I got so caught up in the fun of it all that I forgot to take photos for a tutorial post so I spent a few minutes just now doing some (very) simple drawings on paint - next time the kids let loose on an oversized t-shirt I will have my camera ready!

1.  Lay your t-shirt (the bigger the better) out flat, place your cushion pad down and draw around it with some tailors chalk (the blue line) then draw another line about 2inches out (the red line). 

2.  Cut along the red line making sure you go through both the front and back layer of the t-shirt.

3.  Using the picture as a guide mark lines (the red lines) about 2cm apart all the way around - take note of the corners, you want a tab coming straight off from each one.  Cut along these red lines going only as far as the cushion pad outline - discard the 2 triangles either side of the corner tabs.

4. Take 2 corresponding tabs from the back layer and the front layer and tie them together with a knot.  It is easier to start with each corner and the middle one on each side - inserting the cushion pad before doing the fourth side.

5.  Continue knotting the tabs all the way around untill they are all done.  You can leave the cushion like this if you like the tassles as they are.

6.  Alternatively you can take one tassle from each pair and knot it to another tassle from the pair next to it, and so on, all the way around.  This should make the tassles lie flat against the cushion which means you can easily poke them inside to hide them, giving you a strange knotted-piping effect along the edges.

7.  Plump, relax and enjoy.

 

If you are making them as gifts then you can easily wrap them in clingfilm to keep them clean, ready for when you want to wrap them properly.  I know clingfilm isnt the most eco-friendly thing out there but when it comes to crafts and the kitchen is a seriously handy thing! More importantly it can be rinsed and re-used (with-in reason of course, hygeine not with-standing) and if you do happen to throw it away, keep in mind that it can be rolled into teeny-tiny little balls - effectively taking up less space in those dreaded landfills.

 

TOODLE-PIPS

x♥x