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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

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Make melted snow buddy biscuits

Enjoy easy festive fun by decorating these simple biscuits.
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • Plain biscuits
  • Marshmallows
  • Icing sugar
  • Orange food colouring
  • Black food colouring
  • Small, button shaped chocolate sweets, such as mini Smarties
  • Pretzel sticks
  • Cocktail sticks

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 

  • Remember to check for allergies, eating problems or dietary requirements and adjust the recipe as needed. Make sure you've checked everyone's dietary requirements and allergies then adapted the recipe as appropriate. This may include ensuring no cross-contamination during food storage, preparation and serving, too.  
  • Check if there are any items of food (or packaging) that people can’t touch or be near to or if there are items that people might not be comfortable using in the activity. 
  • Be conscious about who may be fasting when providing snacks, eating and drinking – you may want to plan this activity for when everyone can get involved or leave out the eating and drinking part.
  • You may want to prepare the icing before running this activity.
  • Remember to have a hand washing station and take extra hygiene precautions when handling food. Take a look at our guidance on food preparation.

Running the activity

  1. Gather everyone together and tell them you’re going to make snow buddy biscuits.
  2. Ask everyone to wash their hands.
  3. Put the icing sugar into a bowl and add cold water a teaspoon at a time until the mixture is runny but thick enough to coat a spoon. Icing can be runny until its set. Protect your tables/surfaces to prevent them becoming sticky.
  4. Separate out a small amount of icing into two separate containers. Using the food colouring, dye one pot of icing orange and one pot of icing black.
  5. Put a spoon of icing onto a biscuit, you don’t need to cover the whole biscuit, but make it look like a pool of melted snow.
  6. Before the icing sets, place a marshmallow towards the back of the biscuit. This is the head.
  7. Snap a pretzel stick in half, then attach one half to each side of the head. These will act as arms.
  8. Use a cocktail stick and the black and orange icing to draw features on your snow buddy’s marshmallow head. You may want to add eyes, a mouth and a carrot nose to the marshmallow.
  9. Add the chocolate sweets onto the white icing to act as buttons.
  10. Leave for a while for the icing to set, then try your yummy treat!

Reflection

This activity was also about being independent. What did people do for themselves in this activity? How easy was it to draw on the features?

Is that what your snow person look like when you make them? Discuss what you could add to your snow biscuits, what clothes do snow buddies normally wear?

Take some time to celebrate everyone’s achievements as you enjoy your creations.

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.

Cooking

Teach young people how to use cooking equipment safely. Supervise them appropriately throughout. Make sure it’s safe to use and follow manufacturers’ guidelines for use.

Sharp objects

Teach young people how to use sharp objects safely. Supervise them appropriately throughout. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.

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.

Small groups could try making the icing to make it a slightly harder or longer task.

You could add more elements, such as a scarf or a hat. The scarf could be made of strawberry laces and the hat could be a chocolate button, a chocolate biscuit or a chocolate cup shaped treat.

You could use icing pens instead of icing and cocktail sticks to make this activity slightly easier.

People could work in pairs to help each other spoon or spread the icing, snap the pretzel stick or decorate the marshmallow if anyone needs extra support.

Make sure to check the dietary requirements and allergies for your group and change the recipe as needed.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Scouts Chef Activity Badge
Explorers Chef Activity Badge

You could use a range of other sweet treats to add other accessories to your snowman.

You could make your own biscuits to use (is there another activity already there for that?)