Summer Kids Cooking

Summer is time to spend with children so why not give them a simple cooking lesson. They might even get to like it and start preparing mid-week dinners for the family (as well as rice crispie buns).

Begin with simple recipes of things the kids like to eat. Home made cheese burgers is an obvious example – make the burger from quality mince meat with salt and pepper (no need for binding agents).

To make chicken nuggets; whiz some cornflakes and salt in a food processor or pestle and mortar and roll pieces of chicken breast in the crumbs. Both the chicken and corn flakes are sticky so should be easy. Shallow fry in a little melted butter mixed with sunflower oil.

Home made fish fingers are also easy. Take strips of fresh cod or haddock and dip in beaten egg, roll them in fine breadcrumbs, sprinkle with salt, and fry in butter and oil as above.

For dessert this chocolate biscuit cake cannot be beaten.

Rich Chocolate Biscuit Cake
Make this into an adult cake by adding a glass or two of whiskey. Children will expect milk chocolate but I use a mix of good quality dark chocolate and standard dairy milk. The proportions below are guidelines, feel free to improvise.

2 Eggs, 100g Butter, 3 tbs of Sugar, 2 tbs of Golden Syrup, 2 tbs of Cocoa Powder, 300g Biscuits (Digestives, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Hob Nobs etc.) broken roughly with your hands, 250g Chocolate (dark, milk or a mix), 50-100g Smarties (for decoration).

Break the eggs into a food processor, add the butter and sugar and blend until smooth and fluffy (or do this by hand). Add the golden syrup, broken biscuits, golden syrup and cocoa powder and mix thoroughly.

Break the chocolate into a bowl and place the bowl in a saucepan of barely simmering water. Stir until the chocolate is melted. Adding a little milk (or whiskey) will speed the process and decrease the risk of the chocolate separating.

Add half the melted chocolate to the biscuit mix and stir. Scrape the mix into an 8 inch square cake tin lined with greaseproof paper. Scrape the remaining melted chocolate evenly over the top and sprinkle with Smarties or chocolate pieces for decoration. Set in the fridge for 2 hours.