Recipe: Chocolate Shortbread

Ingredients:
175g salted butter (softened)
90g caster sugar
200g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100g chocolate chips

Method:
1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2) Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, stirring together to form a soft dough. (Add chocolate chips at this point, if using). Keep stirring the dough together until it comes away clean from the sides of the bowl.
3) Leave the dough to chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
4) Preheat oven to fan 180C and line 2 baking trays.
5) Roll out the dough, cut into shapes and place onto trays.
6) Bake for 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool on the tray to firm up. Decorate once cool, if desired.

For these biscuits, we decorated them with melted white chocolate (part of our work on skeletons!). I made the cone out of the same greaseproof paper I lined the trays with. 😊

Stories from other cultures - 1 - Africa

This term for Literacy, we're doing a whistle-stop tour of the (non-Western) world to tick off the suggested NC target of stories from other cultures. Each week, we'll go to the library (and I'll check online) for books and stories for that part of the world and then do a few activities to help them learn about and appreciate that culture a little more.

...I have to keep reminding myself the twins are still only 5! So a very basic overview is enough at this point - there'll be plenty of time in the future, inshaAllah, to do each country more justice! I feel like I definitely have to mention that at this point as this week was just spent looking at Africa as a whole, when obviously it's a whole continent, but concentrating more on central and southern Africa. 🙈

I chose to start with Africa as there's an abundance of children's books either set in the savannah or using safari animals (e.g. The Ugly Five), so it kind of feels familiar to them. Also, their paternal grandparents were born in Mozambique and Uganda, so they have some connection to the continent too.

We started off by finding Africa on their world map and globe, and also looking up individual countries (ones they knew and ones which came up in the library books) in their children's atlas. We talked about how Africa is a continent with lots of different countries inside it. We talked about the kind of climate it has and which kinds of animals are found in the wild there.

Three of the library books which really stood out as perfect teaching material were: Mama Panya's Pancakes, Baby Goes to Market and Grace & Family, set in a traditional Kenyan village, a west African marketplace and a Gambian compound respectively. They opened up lots of discussions on village life, different foods and also different families.

In order to paint a fair picture, I thought it was important to point out to them that Africa is a vast continent and it isn't all villages! So we looked at some pictures online of big cities, such as Nairobi, so they could see the similarities between there and a city here such as London.

After all our reading and discussions, two things in particular stood out as being different from here: the clothes people in the books wore and some of the foods they ate. So I planned two related activities based on this. 👌

1) The girls designed their own African inspired prints, based on the illustrations in the books. We looked at a couple of the books again, flicking through the pages to talk just about the pictures and what people were wearing: we used lots of good vocabulary to do with pattern, shape and colour. The conclusion the twins came to was that they wore bright colours with big designs on them, both the men and the women! And they listed out the kinds of common patterns too, such as animal print, stripes, spirals and flowers.

I then printed out a simple template with three outlines of a dress on it (short sleeved like all the dresses in the books!) and one square blank for them to draw their own clothing of choice.

You can download the template here.

MashaAllah, Z is getting a lot better at pen/brush control and is enjoying copying her sisters! I was really pleased with her efforts and desire to join in. 💕

So they used wax crayons first to draw their designs, then watercolours over the top to colour the dresses in - continuing the watercolours theme lol. I did one alongside them as an example, and because it looked fun and I wanted to. 😂

We then watched a couple of episodes of Tingatinga (in Arabic! for listening practise 😀) and talked about the designs of the animals - they weren't coloured realistically, but the patterns were traditionally African. This also doubled up as another example of stories from the African culture.

2) We had a go at making some of the foods in the books, namely the pancakes from Mama Panya's Pancakes (recipe in the back of the book!) and some chin chin biscuits from Baby Goes to Market. The pancakes didn't turn out so great (the batter is using water and I had trouble frying them 🙈) but the chin chin biscuits were a hit. 👍

I followed the recipe from this website but substituted vanilla essence for nutmeg and baked for around 20min at fan 180. The quantities made 45 biscuits, so I sprinkled granulated sugar on 15, demerara sugar on 15 and left 15 plain before baking.

They taste a bit like scones, but crunchy - and after looking up a scone recipe I found they're very similar! - and are usually fried rather than baked, which I can imagine would taste less dry... But I didn't have enough oil and wasn't keen on frying them to begin with anyway. 😀

Next week, we're going to look at northern Africa and the middle East, inshaAllah. 🌍

Making Gingerbread Men

Cross-curricular Literacy and Numeracy skills in a real-life setting. 😜

Continuing with our fairytales theme, it made sense to make some gingerbread men! After re-reading the story, we looked at the recipe together (revising our work on instructions).

INGREDIENTS
For the biscuit:
100g butter (softened)
175g brown sugar
1 medium egg (beaten)
4 tbsp golden syrup
3-5 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
350g plain flour

To decorate:
75g milk chocolate
Smarties, sultanas, sprinkles, etc.

METHOD
1) Cream together the butter and sugar using an electric hand whisk.
2) Beat in the egg, followed by the golden syrup, using the whisk.
3) Mix together the ginger, bicarbonate of soda and flour in a separate bowl.
4) Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture using a wooden spoon, a little at a time, until it begins to form a dough. Once all the flour has been added, work it together with your hands to make a ball.
5) Leave to chill in the fridge for 20min.
6) Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
7) Roll the gingerbread to 1cm thick, cut out shapes and place on the trays.
8) Bake for around 10min until golden brown. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
9) Decorate using melted chocolate as a "glue".

You can download our recipe sheet here. The ginger in this recipe is quite mild (for Papa's sake!) so you may want to increase accordingly.

Usually, I pre-measure the ingredients so the girls can just concentrate on the baking, but this time they weighed and measured everything themselves - which ties in with their next Numeracy topic on length, weight and capacity. (The cm reference in the recipe was new to them! But a good conversation starter 👌)

How I set up the table ready for them to decorate the gingerbread men:

I demonstrated how to do one: take a gingerbread man from the bowl, dip its feet in the chocolate then in the sprinkles, lay it flat on your plate, take one of the Smarties and dip it in chocolate then stick on the gingerbread man's tummy, repeat for another one of the Smarties, put the finished gingerbread man on the big plate. Then I left them to it - only helping to refill the bowl and change the big plate to an empty one - and mashaAllah they did all 26 without any problems, the 2 year old included! In the past, we've used sultanas for eyes and drawn mouths with icing... But with the baby, this was simplest for today. 😋

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While we were waiting for the gingerbread to cool down before decorating, I decided to use the Smarties as a way of practising the work we'd done so far on tallying and bar charts - simply by having the girls tally the different colours in the packet and draw a graph of the results.

I had them predict which colour they thought would be the most common before they started - which added to the fun as they tallied - and the colouring in at the end was optional, but they both decided they wanted to do it. 😊

You can download our worksheet here. Feel free to edit as you wish - I'll probably use this template myself in different contexts and will change the questions at the bottom to practise different ways of analysing data. 👍

Recipe: Honey & cinnamon flapjacks

Dry Ingredients:
200g rolled oats
1tsp cinnamon
handful chopped nuts (e.g. pecan, walnuts) to taste

Wet Ingredients:
150ml honey
1tbsp golden syrup
handful of sultanas / chopped dates to taste
100g salted butter

Topping:
flaked almonds
drizzle of golden syrup / sprinkle of demerera sugar

1) Preheat oven to fan 180C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, leaving some paper hanging over two of the sides.
2) Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
3) In a saucepan, gently heat and stir together the wet ingredients until the butter has melted.
4) Pour the melted wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and carefully mix until completely combined.
5) Tip the mixture into the baking tray and press down flat. Sprinkle on the toppings of choice.
6) Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. It will still be slightly soft when done.
7) Leave to cool before lifting out of the tray, using the overhanging paper to help.Cut into portions.

Store in an airtight container. Each batch lasts maximum 1 week in this house! I don't know if they would keep for longer. 😂

Recipe: Chocolate chip shortbread

Makes 20-24 biscuits:

150g salted butter (at room temperature)
75g caster sugar
225g plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
100g chocolate chips
2-3tsps Demerara sugar

1) Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3) Sieve in the flour, a little at a time, stirring together with a wooden spoon.
4) Tip in the chocolate chips and bring the mixture together with your hands to form a soft dough. Try not to overwork it to get a better texture to the biscuit. When the dough comes away from the bowl, leaving it clean, then it's ready.
5) Lightly flour a surface and roll the dough to the thickness of the chocolate chips. Cut into shapes and place on baking tray.
6) Sprinkle with demerara sugar for an optional sweet crunch!
7) Leave to chill in the fridge for 20min and preheat the oven to Fan 180C.
8) Bake for 12-14min until the edges turn golden brown.
9) Leave to firm up on the baking tray for 5min before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
10) Enjoy with a cup of tea or glass of cold milk!

Recipe: Nutella-Stuffed "Cookies"

Based on this recipe from www.theperfectionist.co.uk

I didn't have enough flour to make a batch as in the linked recipe, so reduced the quantities accordingly... Nor did I have any baking soda so went without - I prefer a crunchier cookie to a soft one so thought I'd just see how it went! I also chose to leave them to firm up in the fridge before baking, so lengthened the baking time too.

INGREDIENTS
82g salted butter (softened)
82g white caster sugar
61g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg
3/4 tsp vanilla essence
100g milk chocolate chips
195g plain flour
13 1/2 tsps Nutella (refrigerated)

METHOD
1) Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2) Use an electric whisk to beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
3) Use a fork to whisk together the egg and vanilla in a separate bowl.
4) Add the egg/vanilla mixture to the butter/sugars and beat until fully combined.
5) Pour in the chocolate chips.
6) Sift in the flour.
7) Gently stir together with a spatula to make a soft dough.
8) Scoop the dough into small balls (my batch made 13) and flatten gently on one of the baking sheets.
9) Place about 1/2 tsp Nutella into the centre of each dough disc.
10) Carefully pinch the edges of the dough together so the Nutella is inside and roll between your palms to make dough balls.
11) Leave the dough balls to chill on the baking tray in the fridge for 20min. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175C fan.
12) Arrange the dough balls across both baking trays so there is enough space around each for them to expand.
13) Bake for 25min, until the edges turn golden brown.
14) Leave to firm up on the baking trays for a few min before transferring to cooling racks to cool completely. Or enjoy warm with cold milk!

The crunch on the outside was exactly what I wanted, but the centre was still a little too cake-like (although delicious!) and maybe flatter discs and more Nutella would be better too - something to experiment with in the future. 😋😋