Tag Archives: BAKING BUDDIES

Curriculum, Languages, Social Studies

BAKING BUDDIES – Christmas treats to share

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Over the last three weeks the baking buddies have been getting into the spirit of Christmas by making a variety of festive goodies to take home and share with their families.Following each Christmas baking sessions the children have discussed Christmas and shared stories. Some of the buddies have then had the opportunity to create craft related to those discussions. All the results can be seen in the photo selection below.

Christmas Tarts

One of our buddies had requested that we bake jam tarts. To give these a more festive feel we adapted the recipe and filled our tarts with mincemeat and decorated them with a star. The children made their own short crust pastry and used cutters to make the tart base and cutters for the star shaped decoration.

Cinnamon and Vanilla Stars

This recipe was for a basic biscuit recipe that we adapted slightly by adding cinnamon and vanilla to the ingredients.

When we introduce our recipe each week we spend time looking at all the ingredients and talking about them. The children are encouraged to smell the ingredients before we use them describing what they notice or if they like it.  Some of the buddies recognised the smell of vanilla from ice cream and sweets they had before.

As we made star shapes we discussed where we see the star and how relates to Christmas. This week we were very lucky to get invited along to see the nursery nativity as our biscuits cooked in the oven.

Reindeer Cake Pops

This recipe is called a cake pop because a lollipop stick is used to stick onto the end of a ball of cake to create a lollipop cake. The buddies decorated the cake pops with melted chocolate and cake decorations to make a reindeers face.

For this recipe the children had to crumble up a ready bought Christmas cake. We added a vanilla flavoured butter icing which is mixed in together and dough is made. The buddies rolled the dough into smaller balls and they were put in the freezer to harden slightly. The cake pops were then dipped into the chocolate and decorations added.

Snowmen

Whilst we waited for the cake pops to harden in the freezer the children used a selection of marshmallows, melted chocolate, fruit string chews and cake decorations to make their own snowmen lollipops.

Curriculum, Social Studies

BAKING BUDDIES – BIRD CAKES

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The baking buddies have been finding out about the change of season and how it makes food scarce for the birds.  During our baking session today the children got the opportunity to make ‘cakes’ for the birds. Each buddy made one feeder to take home and an extra one for school – this will hopefully encourage birds to visit. We gave the extra feeders to the nursery for their garden, so hopefully the children in nursery will get watch the birds from their window.

The bird cakes were fun to make but very messy as the children used their hands to mix the lard and dry ingredients together. The lard was useful to bind the mix however the buddies did not like its smell! The children used a mixture of oranges and yoghurt pots to hold the bird cake. To use the orange the buddies had to remove the juice and scoop out the rest of the orange leaving just the skin. The buddies got the opportunity to taste the orange juice at snack. After our baking was finished some of the buddies made robin pictures.

Curriculum, Social Studies

BAKING BUDDIES – BAKING FOR PUDSEY

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The Baking Buddies agreed to create some cakes to sell at interval time and give money raised to Children In Need charity. This meant the buddies had a very busy morning as they only had one session to prepare all the cakes ready to sell for 10.45am!

The buddies split into two teams. Mrs McBride helped one group of buddies make TOPHAT cakes using chocolate, marshmallows and smarties. The rest of the buddies worked with Mrs Wilson and Mrs Reynolds to make gluten free SHORTBREAD.

Once the shortbread was cooked all the baking buddies worked really well together to decorate the shortbread with Pudsey Bear yellow icing and coloured spots.

The Baking buddies went round some of the classrooms to tell their classmates about their project and to encourage children to visit their stall. Two buddies kindly gave up their play-time to sell the cakes at the tuck shop. The cakes were very popular and they managed to sell all cakes and raise £16.10 for Children in Need!

The cakes are ready to sell!
Curriculum, Social Studies

BAKING BUDDIES – MOON ROCKS AND ROCKETS

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Earlier this session the Baking Buddies spent time looking through books and recipe cards to find things the children wanted to make during our baking slot.  Rock cakes was one of the recipes selected that day.

Rock cakes allowed the children to get messy hands again as they tried the rubbing in technique that they had enjoyed doing whilst making shortbread.  The rest of the dried ingredients were mixed in with a wooden spoon and then the egg added to make a dough. The children had to share out the dough as a group and then used their dough to make small balls.  These were put on baking tray ready to go into the oven. At this point we adapted the recipe and added silver balls as decoration.  The silver balls melted slightly in the heat of the oven and made our Rock cakes sparkle.  We decided to change the name of the cakes to MOON ROCKS! Following on from our ‘Moon Rock’ baking some of the group decided to use construction sets available to create their own rockets to fly to the moon.

Social Studies

BAKING BUDDIES – Halloween Inspired Treats

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With Halloween approaching the Baking Buddies of Room 14 have been making some halloween inspired treats.

The first treat was Orange shortbread. This recipe came from the set of cards brought in by one of the buddies recently. The children had great fun rubbing in the flour and got very messy hands. They added  grated orange which made the mixture smell delicious. Cutters shaped as a witch, pumpkin, bat and ghost were then used to cut out the shapes in the dough. Once the shortbread cooled the children were able to decorate them.

Ghost cakes were our next Halloween treat. The buddies used a simple cupcake recipe of 50g self raising flour, 50g butter, 50g sugar and 1 egg.  They puts of energy into whisking the egg and creaming the sugar and butter together to make a light mixture. Once the cupcakes had baked in the oven and cooled the children used icing sugar and raisins to make some BOO-tiful ghostly cakes!

BOO-tiful!

The last treat was a simple traditional chocolate covered apple snack. The children washed their fruit first and added a lollipop stick. They used the microwave to melt the chocolate checking on it regularly to see how the chocolate had changed as it melted and ensure it did not burn. They dipped the apples into the chocolate and then added some orange sprinkles for decoration.

Social Studies

Tuesday Baking Buddies – What’s been cooking in room 14 during Term 1?

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WEEK 6  – CHUNKY CHEESE LOAF

Chunky Cheese Loaf ready for the oven

Our recipe for Chunky Cheese Loaf allowed the children to grate cheese, chop apples into tiny bits and whisk eggs. The children enjoyed beating the eggs as fast as they could! George was kind enough to bring in some recipe cards so the group could have a look. They looked through the cards and some recipe books to select  favourites to try during our baking sessions in the future. Thanks George!

WEEK 5  – FRUIT JUMBLE

Chopping fruit

Fruit Jumble is delicious with custard.

This is a simple tasty recipe that is great for a pudding after tea called Fruit Jumble. The recipe is similar to a bread and butter pudding so the children were spreading as well as mixing, cutting and measuring. We had spare bread left over so prepared and set the table and made some toast for snack – yummy! The children then used fruits left over to do some fruit printing. We will display some of these pictures on the wall and use the others as placemat backgrounds.

WEEK 4 – CARROT & COURGETTE MUFFINS

There was plenty opportunity to use the graters this week. The children made savoury muffins using carrots and courgettes. We talked about dry bowls and wet bowls during cooking and mixed the two together before putting the mixture into muffin cakes. The muffins were not to everyones taste as they were not very sweet but the children enjoyed making them.

This week we made a shopping list and walked across to the Meiklemill shops to buy our ingredients for next week’s recipe. It was pouring with rain so we were drenched on the way back!

WEEK 3 – PICNIC GOODIES

Baking was linked to the onging class work on the Light House Keepers Lunch. We read the story about the Lighthouse Keepers picnic and the children made their own picnic We made lighthouse stawberry mallows, starfish sandwiches and Mr Grinley cat biscuits. It was a sunny day so we took a picnic rug down to Gordon Park to eat our goodies there.

WEEK 2 – BUTTER BEAN SOUP

Butter Bean Soup ingredients

We made an oven cooked Butter Bean Soup. The children learned how to top and tail spring onions and cut the celery into small pieces. The soup included garlic and chilli so perfect for a cold day. It tasted delicious served with some crusty bread.

WEEK 1 – FRUITY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

Hungry Fruit Caterpillar

We began our session by reading the Hungry Caterpillar. The children then enjoyed creating their own fruit caterpillars. There was a selection of fruits to choose from including pears, strawberries, blueberries, grapes and apples. The caterpillar was then covered with a honey glaze – delicious!

This term our baking group have been busy working together in small groups to make a variety of delicious simple recipes.  The recipes selected have allowed the children to develop their cutting, chopping and grating skills. At the beginning of the session we focused on the importance of kitchen hygiene and in particular hand washing. Before each baking session the children sing our hand washing song to ensure they have given their hands a thorough clean.