It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get baking as we show you how to throw a truly magical fairy picnic with your kids and not forgetting their favourite baking expert…Flossie Crums!
Who is Flossie Crums?
Flossie Crums is a 7 and 3/4 year old story book character who LOVES to bake. She’s such a great cake maker that she’s been asked by the Queen of the fairies from the Royal Kingdom of Romolonia to be their "Official Royal Baker!" The fairies live inside the chestnut tree in Flossie’s garden at 22, Maple Syrup Lane and Flossie and her little brother love to visit the Royal Kingdom, whenever they are invited. Flossie would love to share some of her recipes with you, so roll up your sleeves and drag an adult into the kitchen to help prepare a fairy picnic!
We caught up with Helen Nathan, children’s baking expert and author of the popular Flossie Crums books. The Flossie Crums series are all about Flossie’s adventures in Romolonia but they also include mouth watering recipes.
As well as writing books, Helen is an ex pastry chef and mother of three girls, so she knows everything there is to know about fairies, cupcakes and pink ready to roll icing! With Flossie’s help (!) Helen prepared a fairy picnic for her own daughters and friends and invited the Baby London team to share the experience.
It was a beautiful sunny day and the children had fun playing in the sprinkler, helping lay out the picnic and running around with their fairy wings flapping. Helen explained that research from the States has proved that baking
with your children helps provide positive memories and is a great way to bond with your child. It is also a good opportunity to encourage literacy, numeracy and even the odd washing up lesson!
As well as preparing a fairy feast, Helen read extracts from her book "Flossie Crums and the Royal Spotty Dotty Cake" (available from Amazon and leading bookshops.) In this third adventure, Flossie and her little brother are very excited because there is a cake competition at the summer fair in Little Lickington and Flossie KNOWS she can win! However, as she’s putting the finishing touches to her cake, the fairies pay her a visit and explain that there is a crisis in Romolonia. We won’t spoil the ending but will will tell you that the recipe for chocolate and mint marble cake is fantastic and Billie’s toffee brownies are divine!
Below are some of the recipes Helen….and Flossie, made for our Summer Fairy Picnic.
Moo Cow Milkshakes
The kids LOVED painting the inside of the glasses with chocolate to help make the Moo Cow Milkshakes.
What you need:
50g grams dark chocolate
3 scoops of soft scoop vanilla ice cream
1/2 pint milk
Handful of ice cubes
Makes 4 small milkshakes
What you do:
Using a pastry brush (or paint brush for kitchen use) paint brown
‘splodges’ of chocolate on the inside of 4 plain glasses and then put
the glasses in the fridge for at least 5 minutes.
Pour the other ingredients into a food processor or liquidiser and
‘blitz’ for 2 minutes until the ice cubes have been smashed up.
Although kids can help put the ingredients into the mixer, a grown up
must switch the machine on, ensuring the lid is securely fastened.
Finally, pour the vanilla milkshake into the chocolate painted
glasses, moo -tiful!
Jammy Stars
what you need:
8 slices of brown or white bread
spreadable butter and jam
edible glitter (optional)
plastic star cutter
What you do:
Spread four of the slices of bread with butter and jam, then put the
other four slices on top to make sandwiches.
Using the star cutter, press down firmly to make star shapes and
sprinkle the sandwiches with edible glitter.
Fairy Pillow Sausage Rolls
What you need:
1 packet ready to roll puff pastry
small fistful of flour
1 packet good quality sausages
1 beaten egg
What you do:
Get a grown up to turn the oven to 190c
Unroll the pastry from the pack and spread onto a lightly floured
surface.
Get a grown up to help you slit the sausage skin off the sausages and
reform thin strips of sausage meat along the long length of the
pastry, then brush the edge of pastry next to the sausage meat with
beaten egg
Fold the other side of the pastry over onto the egg-washed edge. Press
down to seal and trim any excess. Cut each pastry roll into 8-10 small
fairy pillow sausage rolls and brush the top with beaten egg.
Then repeat the process with the remaining pastry. You should get 20
rolls from one packet of pastry,
Place the ‘pillows’ onto a baking tray and get a grown up to put it in
oven to bake for 15-20 minutes, or until crisp and golden and the
sausage meat is completely cooked through.
Get a grown up to take out the oven and serve warm or cold.
Honeycomb Cupcakes with Bees
What you need:
12 cupcake cases
115g/33⁄4oz/1⁄2 cup softened butter
115g/33⁄4oz/1⁄2 cup caster sugar
115g/33⁄4oz/1 cup self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 tbsp milk
1 tbsp runny honey
Icing and decoration
400g/14oz/31⁄4 cups icing sugar
50g/2oz/1⁄4 cup softened butter
3 dsp cold water
1 tsp vanilla essence
Piping bag (if you like)
4 bars of chocolate-coated honeycomb
Sugar bees (available at www.flossiecrums.com)
What you do:
Ask a grown-up to preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºC/gas mark 5. Put 12
paper cupcake cases into a 12-hole fairy cake tin.
Put all the cupcake ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix everything
together for about 4 minutes until there are no lumpy bits of butter.
Spoon the mixture evenly between the paper cases.
Ask a grown-up to help you put the cake tin in the oven, then bake for
18 minutes.
Ask a grown-up to take the cupcakes out the oven and leave them to
cool completely.
Once the cakes are cool, make the icing: mix the icing sugar with the
butter, water and vanilla in a large bowl. (You need to mix really
slowly at first, otherwise the kitchen can get a bit covered in icing
sugar!) After a few minutes, the icing should be smooth and glossy.
(You can always add a little bit more icing sugar if it’s too runny or
more water if it’s too stiff.) To make the icing REALLY professional,
get a grown-up to mix the icing with an electric mixer or whisk for
about 10 minutes (this is a very long time, but then, your icing gets
fluffy and as light as a fairy!).
If you can use a piping bag, put the icing in the bag and pipe a big
swirl on top of each cake, or spread the icing on with a spoon.
To finish, cut the honeycomb bars into bite-sized chunks and pile up a
few pieces on top of each cupcake. Add a few sugar bees on special
occasions!
Makes 12 large cupcakes or 36 baby ones!
White Chocolate Cupcakes with raspberry icing
What you need:
Cupcakes
12 cupcake cases
100g/31⁄2oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
125g/4oz/just over 1⁄2 cup butter
200g/7oz/just under 1 cup caster sugar
125ml/4fl oz/1⁄2 cup milk
1 egg
190g/61⁄2oz/13⁄4 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
Icing and decoration
I packet of Renshaws raspberry-flavoured magic melting icing chocolate
swirls (or 400g/14oz/31⁄4 cups icing sugar mixed with 5 tbsp of water
and 1 drop of pink food colouring)
Fresh raspberries or sweeties
What you do:
Ask a grown-up to preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºC/gas mark 5. Put 12
paper cupcake cases into a 12-hole fairy cake tin.
Then ask the same kind grown-up to melt the chocolate in a saucepan
with the butter, sugar and milk. Take off the heat and leave to cool
for 10 minutes.
Scrape this mixture into a bowl and mix with the egg, flour and
vanilla essence. Stir together until well mixed. Spoon the mixture
evenly between the paper cases.
Ask a grown-up to help you put the cake tin in the oven, then bake
for 20 minutes.
Ask a grown-up to take the cupcakes out the oven and leave them to
cool completely.
When the cupcakes are cool, follow the instructions on the icing
packet to make up the icing (or carefully mix the icing sugar, water
and food colouring in a bowl) and pour onto the cupcakes.
Decorate with fresh raspberries or sweeties
Makes 12 cupcakes (or 36 baby cakes
Flossie’s top three tips:
If it looks like it might rain, lay a rug on the kitchen floor and
have your fairy picnic inside!
Don’t forget to help tidy up the kitchen, for some reason my mum is
always in a bad mood if I just run off and play and leave her to tidy
up!
Wear an apron to keep your clothes neat and tidy. (have a look at my
new funky Flossie Crums apron on my web site www.flossiecrums.com)
