Let's get baking

It was a Monday morning and Nevaeh was bored. She wasn’t at nursery today, so she was at her auntie’s house. Neveah’s auntie was bored of hearing that Neveah was bored.

‘Why don’t we do some baking?’ Nevaeh’s auntie suggested. ‘We could make something to share with your cousins when they get home from school.’

‘OK!’ said Nevaeh. ‘What should we make?’

‘I know,’ her auntie replied. ‘Let’s make Grandma’s magic biscuits.’

Nevaeh had never heard of Grandma’s magic biscuits before, but she thought they sounded pretty exciting.

‘How are they magic?’ she asked.

‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ her auntie replied, winking.

Neveah and her auntie started to make the biscuit dough. They stirred some squishy butter, added grainy sugar, and cracked a large brown egg (and a big bit of eggshell that Nevaeh fished out with a spoon).

After they mixed in the flour, Nevaeh and her auntie closed their eyes, wiggled their fingers, and clapped five times. Now the soft golden dough was full of magic, it was time to turn it into biscuits and bake them in the oven.

Nevaeh made some stars, some circles, and some unicorn-shaped biscuits. They put them into the oven for nine minutes, then left them to cool on the side.

Soon it was time to pick Nevaeh’s cousins up from school. She told them all about Grandma’s magic biscuit recipe as they walked home. Then it was time to tuck in.

Her oldest cousin was first. They took a bite, and Nevaeh watched them carefully. What was going to happen? Suddenly, they started bouncing!

‘Woah!’ they said, jumping up and down. ‘The biscuits have given me a magic power! I can jump really high without getting tired. Watch!’

Then it was Nevaeh’s middle cousin’s turn. She started to eat her biscuit, waited a moment, and started singing beautifully.

‘Wow!’ Nevaeh said. ‘The magic biscuits taught you a new song!’

Finally, it was time for Nevaeh’s youngest cousin to try a magic biscuit. He nibbled the edge and closed his eyes.

‘What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?’ he said. Everyone looked puzzled. ‘A carrot!’ Nevaeh burst out laughing. His magic power was telling jokes!

Nevaeh was looking forward to finding out what her own magic power would be. She licked her lips, took a deep breath, and crunch, crunch, crunched the biscuit until it was all gone. Everyone waited to see what would happen.

‘I think my magic power is eating biscuits,’ Nevaeh declared. ‘Can I have another one, just to test it out?’

By Annabel Rose

Baking’s a really fun activity, and it’s full of opportunities to learn and try new things. Here are our top tips for keeping everyone engaged:

• Encourage everyone to use their listening skills to follow the recipe. Can they remember what to do first?
• If anyone’s started to learn to read, they could practise reading some of the words (or recognising some of the numbers) in the recipe.
• Try to support everyone to take it in turns to get stuck in. People can share jobs like finding and weighing the ingredients and mixing everything together. They could take it in turns to roll out the dough, or you could give everyone their own piece to roll out.
• Remind people to wash their hands again when they need to, including if they touch their face or handle raw egg (including touching the dough).
• An adult should put the baking tray into the oven. When it’s ready, an adult should take it out and leave it somewhere out of reach. The adult should help everyone understand that the oven and tray get really hot, so it’s important not to touch them. They should explain that they’re wearing oven gloves to keep their hands safe.

Here are a few ideas for making shaped or iced biscuits.

• You can find squirrel cookie cutters online. Beaver and cub cookie cutters are a bit harder to find, but you could try making your own template.
• You could use your hands to shape your dough into animal shapes. If you want to keep it simple, roll the dough to make worms, snakes, and snails.
• You could get some fleur-de-lis cookie cutters from Scout Store. 
• You could use melted chocolate (make sure it’s not too hot to touch) or icing to add some details. You could also use sprinkles and biscuit crumbs to add texture and details.
• You could use red and black icing to make ladybird biscuits. Cover the biscuits in red liquid icing, then roll solid black icing to make a tiny line across the middle of each biscuit. Add tiny balls of solid black icing, and your ladybird has their spots. You can even use the spots to practise counting.
• You could use red and yellow icing to make bee biscuits. Cover the biscuits in yellow liquid icing, then roll solid black icing to make stripes along the bee. You can use the stripes to practise counting.