To make up for my rather indulgent afternoon tea last week, I decided to make some cute party snacks with my daughter. She had so much fun making these. I thought they were super cute and a great way to get your kids eating healthy stuff in a fun way, especially if your having a garden party this summer.
We’re celebrating the King’s coronation this Sunday and I’m sure there will be garden parties galore here in the UK, so I couldn’t resist making some party food.
I wanted something fun for my kids but also with a bit of a heath kick. My kids loved making rainbow sushi, so I thought about doing something with rainbow coloured salad. Seeing as it’s pride month too, so I wanted a to make something colourful and vibrant for my garden party theme.
I thought I’d share two little recipes that I hope your kids will love making. The first are little salad butterflies and snails. My daughter adored making these, and she really enjoyed eating them too! The second are my mini dandelion sconces with lemon curd! Both are really easy to make.
Slugs and Snails and Peanut Butter tails…
These cute little veg and fruit critters would look great in any garden party. I used cream cheese, Marmite peanut butter, (although normal nut butter of any kind will do) Biscoff spread and Nutella.
I bought a selection of fruit and salad veg to make these. You can use anything you like really, it’s all healthy after all. A tip I would share however is that if you use cucumber, make sure you use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and it pat dry with kitchen towel before applying any of the spreads.
This does get a little messy, so it’s the perfect activity to keep the kids busy while you’re preparing other things. I prepped all the veg first allowing my daughter to choose what she wanted to make, but you could totally be more organised and probably less messy if you wanted.
I also discovered that celery works really well with peanut butter and cream cheese- but not so much Nutella, despite my daughter putting it on there. I think she would literally just eat a jar of Nutella on anything, if she had the chance.
To make the antenna for our snails’ head, I simply made two cucumber strips and then made two small slits in a cherry tomato. The cucumber will slot in, just don’t make the slots too big.
I did find that cherry tomatoes stay in place better with cream cheese, a lot better than they do with peanut butter at least. But, as I mentioned earlier, my daughter can’t be negotiated with when she’s in a creative fever.
You could also totally eat these as a salad. It would make a show stopper in the middle of the table. Plus, how could you not want to eat this cute little salad?
Fun Garden Games
A garden party wouldn’t be complete without some fun garden games this summer. Of course, you don’t have to spend money to have fun, in fact my daughter’s favourite game at the moment is the floor is lava! I like using Pinterest to look for inspiration when it comes to parties.
There’s so many games to choose from, but I decided to buy some for the summer. Partly to be frugal with money, I’d prefer to have fun at home in the garden, than spend it when I’m out and about. Inflation is expensive here in the UK and as much as I love to treat my kids, going out is flipping expensive. Secondly, I think games are a good way to strengthen bonds and educate youngsters.
My favourite has to be this classic Jenga set by Jaques. I love the sleek design. The bag makes it super easy to store and I think it just looks the part. I’ve been absolutely loving this and we’ve had great fun playing with it. I thought it was reasonably priced at £39.99 and its travel friendly!
Mini dandelion Scones
So the next recipe I made was a little unusual twist on a classic. Firstly I know dandelions are weeds, however they are actually edible. They contain vitamins A, B, C, and D, as well as minerals, such as iron, potassium, and zinc. They have a sweet flavour when they are young, like they are in May, akin to honey.
Plus, I have an abundance growing in my garden so I though this would be a good ingredient to use in my scones.
My daughter loved picking the heads of the dandelions. I will say that only use dandelions that you know are safe. For example, I know that I don’t use weed killer or pesticides in my garden so these are okay to use.
Next we washed the dandelions well in cold water. I left a couple out to dry just for decoration. Next I gave my daughter the task of picking off the yellow leaves only and placing them into a bowl. While I got on with the scone mix.
Ingredients:
50g Butter
25g Caster sugar
180g Self-raising flour
1/2 tbs Baking Powder
1 large Egg
40ml Milk
20 Dandelions
1tbs Vanilla extract
Whipping cream
Lemon curd
I used to love making fresh scones every morning when I worked in kitchens. Nothing beats a scone when it’s made right. It’s also so quintessentially British so I just had to make some for the King’s Coronation. I thought it would be nice to top these with whipped cream and lemon curd.
Because the scone mix contains sugar it won’t rise much, unlike cheese ones. This is because the fat in the cheese causes the scone mix to rise. Sweet scones are supposed to be flat, but at least that way you can add more filling to them!
Method:
Add the butter, baking powder, caster sugar and flour to a bowl. Rub them together with the tips of your fingers. Eventually you should form a consistency of breadcrumbs. It takes around 5 mins, just make sure the butter is soft!
Once this is done add two eggs, vanilla extract to the milk and whisk. Add most of the egg mixture to the flour. Combine until you form a dough. At this stage incorporate the dandelion leaves.
Once you have a dough roll out onto a floured surface. Use the cookie cutters to cut out a circle. The size is up to you just don’t forget to adjust the cooking times if you make them bigger.
Place mini scones on baking paper and brush with remaining egg mixture. Place in the oven at 180 degrees. Cool for 12 mins, taking the tray out half way through and turning it around for the perfectly even cooked scones.
Take them out of the oven and sprinkle with caster sugar while still hot. Fill with whipped cream and lemon curd or jam or anything your kids like! Top with dandelion for decorative purposes.
These are two fun recipes you can make with your kids for the Coronation! They’re bound to love how cute they are.
Thanks for reading,
Soph.
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