Recipe: Orange & Carrot Muffins with a crunchy oat topping

Silent Sunday

Halloween Spider Cake & Bonfire Cake

I baked a couple of cakes for Halloween and Bonfire night which were so easy, perfect for a novice (like me!) but looked great so thought I would share them with you for inspiration.

I won't go into the ins and outs of how to make them as I think they are fairly self explanatory, I'll keep it short but if anyone wants a full guide just shout!

Bonfire Night Recipe: Cinnamon Catherine Wheels

Here's an easy peasy recipe the kids get involved with for some yummy cinnamon swirls aptly renamed for Bonfire night as Cinnamon Catherine Wheels.

What you need

375g pack of ready rolled puff pastry

75g Caster Sugar

75g Softened butter

2 tbsp Ground Cinnamon

Sultana's (optional)

1 Egg beaten with 2 tbsp Milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°c/ Gas 6. Roll your puff pastry out into a flat rectangle.

2. Beat together the butter, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and then spread over the pastry. Scatter with sultana's if desired the roll the rectangle pastry from the short side into a sausage. Chill for a minimum of 10 minutes (the longer the better as it will make it easier to cut!).

3. Cut into 1cm wide slices and place flat on a baking sheet. Press them slightly so they spread out a little. Chill for 20 minutes (Or you can freeze them at this point. Open-freeze until solid then freeze in a sealed container for up to one month. Bake from frozen (brush with egg mixture and sprinkle with caster sugar half way through)

4. Brush with egg mixture, sprinkle with sugar and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden. 

Best served warm, sprinkled with sugar. Yummy with custard or just as nice cooled as an afternoon teatime treat!

Source

Halloween: Chocolate Cornflake 'insert scary creature here' Nests!

We probably all think of chocolate cornflake nests as traditionally an Easter thing, but they are so simple to make, kids love making them and they are pretty tasty too.

So, I decided to re-make them for Halloween as Dragon and Dinosaur nests, but you could do them as any scary creature you wanted to really!

All you need to do is follow the same recipe used for our Easter ones HERE but in place of the mini eggs we used Cadburys new green mini 'screme' eggs and some which other halloween-ish mini eggs with red caramel inside, simply cut in half.

As my two year old is obsessed with sprinkles too, we added some orange shreds sprinkled on some and used some toffee sauce on others to make them extra gooey (and tasty!)

I also had the idea of candy floss/ spun sugar put over the top as cobwebs for spiders webs. I didn't have time to try it, but someone could.... I think it would look good with a few of the small plastic spiders dotted around for display too. 

OK, ok, so I know spider technically don't have 'nests' like this but it's all for the fun of halloween eh?

Leaf art: animals and fairies

At the moment in seems as though we cannot go on even the tiniest of walks without collecting a carrier bag full to the brim with leaves!

The different shapes and colours, so many varieties too, means that we just have to pick them up!

So - what to do with them once they are home? Seems a shame for them to sit in a box forever more.

Halloween: Decorated pumpkins

Everyone has to have pumpkins at Halloween right?

But, as pretty as traditional carved pumpkins are, they really can prove difficult to do for any adult, let alone a child. There is of course, lots of fun to be had in hollowing them out but the actual cutting part is one for those a bit older.

Having 3 preschoolers, we decided to decorate our pumpkins instead.

Armed with paint, pens, glitter, gems and sequins the kids had free reign on what they wanted to do with their pumpkin.

The little ones (12 and 16 months old) used paint and their fingers to cover the pumpkins and the nearly 3 year old had a whale of a time with glitter & gems.

They are not scary by any means, really rather pretty actually. Great to display and last much much longer than those which have been hollowed out.

Autumn: Play dough meets nature

Here I have 2 activities to do with play dough after going on a nature trail collecting lovely Autumn bits like leaves, cones, twigs etc

Sunny October?

Maybe a bit of an odd post but felt like I should post it seen as though we started the journey on here...

Way back in March, yes 7 whole months ago, we planted some sunflower seeds in pots and posted about it HERE.

We planted a lot and gave many of them away as gifts for easter.

Silent Sunday