We’re going through a bit of a moment right now aren’t we? It’s a strange and somewhat unsettling time, but now more than ever I suspect a lot of you are looking for easy ways to keep yourself and perhaps your children entertained and happy.
In times like this we need each other. A community of support and kindness is what will get us through so I wanted to do my bit to help. When they announced the closure of schools on Wednesday, having friends and family with children and full time jobs I knew this would be a time of stress and concern over how they’d keep them entertained and educated over the coming weeks.
A community of support and kindness is what will get us through so I wanted to do my bit to help.
I can’t offer much on the maths and science front, but I can provide the food technology so over the next week I will be bringing you easy child friendly recipes. I will need to do a spot of baking this weekend to provide you some of this content but what I can offer immediately are some recipes from my cookbooks that are super simple and require minimal supervision.
Some of you might already have these but I’m going to add some adaptations to them should you need to make them dairy free or egg free, (because the worlds gone mad and taken all the eggs).
So let’s start with my first born The Unicorn Cookbook.
Gingerbread Gems (Egg Free)
Ingredients
For the biscuits:
- 75 g butter can be substituted with vegan butter
- 3 tbsp golden syrup
- 60 g light brown sugar
- 175 g plain flour
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground ginger
For the topping:
- 150 g royal icing
- 25 ml cool water
- Gel food colouring pink, blue, green and yellow
Instructions
For the biscuits
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 5.
- Place the butter, golden syrup and light brown sugar into a pan and stir on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger in a mixing bowl, make a well in the centre, and pour in the sugar and butter mixture.
- Mix together to form a dough and create a ball shape using your hands. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to firm for 30 minutes.
- Lay the chilled dough between two sheets of floured baking paper and use a rolling pin to roll out to a thickness of approximately 5mm.
- Remove the top layer of baking paper then cut out shapes using the flower-shaped cutter. Remove the scraps and re-roll if required then transfer the flower biscuits to the lined baking tray. Bake for 10–12 minutes until golden.
- Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the icing
- While they’re cooling whisk together the royal icing and water until the mixture holds stiff peaks and is firm enough to pipe.
- Split the mixture between four bowls and add a different coloured drop of gel food colouring to each, stirring it in.
- Fit a closed star nozzle to four small piping bags and fill each bag with a different coloured icing mixture. Pipe a little icing onto each biscuit, lifting the piping bag up sharply to create the peak effect.
- Leave the royal icing to set hard for an hour then serve.
Notes
Unicorn Rocks
Ingredients
- 400 g white chocolate
- Gel food colouring pink, purple and turquoise
- Unicorn Sprinkles
- Edible glitter
Instructions
- Line a baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
- Place the squares of white chocolate in a heatproof bowl and put into a microwave for 1-2 minutes, checking every 30 seconds until it’s completely melted.
- Carefully spilt the white chocolate equally between three bowls
- Add a drop of different gel food colouring to each bowl and then place spoonfuls of each mixture in a random formation onto the prepared baking paper.
- Swirl the mixture together gently with a cocktail stick and scatter sprinkles and edible glitter over the top.
- Leave to set at room temperature for 1 hour then remove from fridge, peel off the baking paper and break the chocolate into shards.
Sparkling Unicones
Ingredients
- 6 waffle ice cream cones
- 200 g white chocolate can be substituted for dairy free white chocolate
- sprinkles
Instructions
- Line a baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
- Place the white chocolate squares in a heatproof bowl and microwave for 2 minutes, checking every 30 seconds until it melts down completely.
- Pour the melted chocolate into a mug and dunk each cone, with the tip facing downwards, into the mug until it’s completely coated
- Stand the cones on the pre-prepared baking tray, scatter generously with sprinkles and leave to allow the chocolate to set.
- You can use these for ice creams, fill them with sponge cake or sweets or simply eat them as they are. The creative possibilities are limitless.
If you liked these recipes you can buy The Unicorn Cookbook today for £6.46 on Amazon
