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Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

Discover what this means

Cookies with character

Decorate your own happy cookie characters.
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • Scrap paper
  • Pens or pencils
  • Food colouring
  • Spoons
  • Mixing bowls
  • Biscuits
  • Icing sugar
  • Decorations

Theme this activity for Pride or LGBT+ History Month

  • Get creative and design cookies for Pride or LGBT+ History Month. While you're decorating, discuss the meaning of the events and why they're important – don’t forget to keep our values (integrity, respect, care, belief, and cooperation) in mind. 
  • Not sure where to begin? You could create pride flags (here are 21 of the most common ones) or write affirming messages in icing, such as ‘love is love’ or ‘LGBT+ rights are human rights’.
  • If you’re feeling up to a challenge, why not try two interlinked hands or an LGBT+ role model?
  • Keen cooks could also try baking something special to ice – they might think about making special shaped biscuits or attempt a colourful rainbow cake.

Before you begin

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning this activity

  • It’s up to you whether you use biscuits or something else, such as rice cakes.
  • Check for any dietary requirements or allergies and check the ingredients to make sure everyone can use them
  • Make up a few bowls of icing using icing sugar and water. Add food colouring to some so people have a few colour options.
  • Put the decorations into bowls. It’s up to you what you use – small sweets and small fruit, such as blueberries and raisins, work well.

Happy thoughts

  1. Give everyone a piece of scrap paper and a pen or pencil.
  2. Everyone is going to design their biscuits before icing them.
  3. To start, draw their biscuit's shape onto the paper. 
  4. Now, everyone should draw a design onto their biscuit shape. They should design something that makes them happy, such as their favourite flower, their dog, their friends or a sport. It also could be how they look when they’re happy, such as a big smiley face.
  5. It’s best to keep the designs simple, as people will have to make them with icing, sweets and fruit.
  6. Looking at the colours of icing and the decorations that are available, everyone should think about how they’ll use the icing and decorations on the table to create their design. Do they need to make anything a bit simpler?
  7. Before starting to decorate, everyone should wash their hands.

Decorate biscuits

  1. Give everyone a biscuit.
  2. The easiest way to get started is by spreading a thin layer of icing over their biscuit using the back of a spoon.
  3. Next, everyone should copy their designs and decorate their biscuits with the icing, sweets and fruit.
  4. Once everyone’s finished decorating their biscuit, they should come together to admire each other’s creations and show each other what makes them happy. Now’s a great time to reflect, too.
  5. Everyone should enjoy their treat or take it home for later.

Reflection

This activity needed everyone to use their skills to plan ahead to design their biscuit, then decorate it based on what was available. How close were people’s biscuits to their original designs? Did anyone find any parts of this activity tricky? Some people may have found it tricky to spread the icing evenly over their biscuits – it can be hard to get it even, especially if you start with too much or too little icing. This activity was also a chance for everyone to think about the things that make them happy. Everyone should look at all of the biscuits, and take it in turns to call out the things they recreated on their biscuit. While they eat their biscuit, everyone can think of the things that make them happy.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Food

Remember to check for allergies, eating problems, fasting or dietary requirements and adjust the recipe as needed. Make sure you’ve suitable areas for storing and preparing food and avoid cross contamination of different foods. Take a look at our guidance on food safety and hygiene.

Why not swap designs with someone else so everyone decorates a biscuit based on someone else’s design? Alternatively, people could create one design in a small group and work together to create identically designed biscuits.

People can create simpler designs (or use a larger surface area) if they need to. Make sure you take into account allergies and dietary requirements – you may need to get gluten free biscuits or gelatin free sweets.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Beavers My Skills Challenge Award
Squirrels Super Chef Activity Badge

Why not decorate cakes for an event you’re hosting such as Father’s Day or showing older people some skills? This could even count towards your My World Challenge Award if it’s helping people in your local community.

People could bring in things that they’d like to use to decorate with and share – if you plan to do this, make sure everyone is aware of any allergens to avoid.