Biscuit Wreath

This year my oldest son wanted to take in a gift to share with all the teachers from his school and he wanted it to be something edible. While we were sitting in a waiting room at an appointment he found a picture of a biscuit wreath and decided that this was exactly what he wanted to make.

We made a butter biscuit recipe with white chocolate added to the mix for a richer biscuit. Once we cut out the biscuits we 'glued' them together into a wreath shape with melted chocolate. I thought this was easier than a royal icing alternative and the children could manage without my help.

White Chocolate Butter Biscuits

200 grams of butter

1 cup of caster sugar

1 egg

2 1/4 cups of plain flour

100 grams of grated white chocolate

Extra 150grams  white chocolate for joining the biscuits

Icing sugar for sifting over the finished wreath

Cream the butter and sugar then add the egg and mix well.

Slowly add the flour and grated chocolate to the mixture. 

Once the mixture comes together in a big lump put it in the fridge for half an hour.  

Roll the mixture out and cut out various sized stars, place on a baking tray and put in the oven at 180C conventional or 170C fan forced. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until they start to colour - these biscuits are not meant to be brown, so stay close to the oven when cooking as the chocolate in the mix ensures that they go from cooked to burnt in a few minutes!

Once the biscuits have cooled, melt the extra chocolate and use it to glue the stars in a wreath shape. Sift icing sugar over the top to finish.

Cold Banana Ice-Cream

I had a few bananas that were starting to get very ripe so I peeled them, broke them into pieces and froze them. All I had to do was wait for the perfect combination of a hot day, and a day when I remembered that I had these frozen gems all ready to make some mini 'ice-creams'. After the children had worn themselves out on the trampoline we enjoyed our home made ice-cream (I know it doesn't have any cream in it, but any other descriptive term doesn't encompass the creamy texture of the creation).

I put the frozen banana pieces into the blender and turned it on. I forgot to put my hand on the top and the lid came flying off. Our second attempt was more successful.

The bananas take around 5 minutes to blend properly in my blender. I had to stop blending a few times to scrape down the sides. Then we were able to see it happen...our banana lumpy mix turned from this mix here (see below)...

To this incredible looking soft serve banana ice-cream.

All there was left to do was put them into some tiny ice-cream cones.

This banana ice-cream mix does not refreeze very well without crystalising and becoming more like an ice-block rather than ice-cream, so I mostly just freeze 2 bananas at a time and that gives all of my children a lovely serve.

Stained Glass Window Paints

I have had a packet of window paints in the cupboard for a while. It seems like it is something that is too hard for the children to manage on their own without extensive assistance from me. I had a little more time than usual this week so thought I would give it a go. I traced the design from the book with the black paints and let it completely dry. Once it was dry then I let the children loose with the paints. My only stipulation was they could only use one paint at a time and needed to let it dry before moving on. Well, it is a good thing the paint dried very quickly or the first photo would have been as far as the picture developed.

Paper Hobby Horse

In the course of playing dress ups during the week we uncovered a major failing of the dress-up box - there are no horse costumes. Since it has been hot and humid this week, I didn't feel like bringing out the sewing machine to whip up an amazing horse costume (I'm not even sure I could make one without a pattern, anyway!). I remembered my fabulous friend Irene making these paper hobby horses a year or two ago, so I thought I would give it a go.

First I drew a horse head (not one of my better skills!).

Next James cut out two heads and started sticking clumps of wool to the inside for the mane.

Then he glued the two heads together. This was a slight problem because he glued ALL of the heads together. He went back and pulled apart the neck so we could slide the cardboard roll into the head.

Now we have a complete hobby horse to ride around the house and pretend we are galloping off to rescue distressed damsels and compete in horse races around the garden.