Angel Delight Shortbread :: A Recipe ::

When I was a kid my sister and I adored Angel Delight, I think one of the things we really loved was that we were able to make it ourselves. Kids love to cook generally and love the independence of being able to do it by themselves. Milo has since inherited this same love and proudly measures out the milk, adds the packet, whisks the mix, carefully pours it into single serving bowls and pops it in the fridge. It's so quick and easy making it a fabulous school day pudding.

When I saw the Britmum's Angel Delight linky challenge celebrating the new bubblegum flavour we were eager to try it out. So I gave Milo the responsibility of preparing Thursday nights pudding, he did a fabulous job and we all enjoyed the results.

However I wanted to try out something else. I have really fond memories of strawberry shortbread my Mum would make when I was a kid, which she would flavour with blancmange mix. This got me thinking about how interesting bubblegum flavoured shortbread would be. So I sent my Mum off to rummage through her old recipe books and adjusted her original recipe to see if I could make Angel Delight Shortbread

I was so impressed with the results, you could of course use any of the Angel Delight flavours for this recipe, but we are particularly fond of the bubblegum variety.

Here's the recipe if you fancy making some yourself ::

Sunday in my Kitchen ::

Our kitchen gets a lot of use throughout the week, as I'm sure most do, especially if you have children (they need 3 proper meals every single day you know?!).  But during the week it mostly seems like a chore to be in there.  The preschool rush of breakfast preparation, the post school drop off clearing up all the mess, preparing meals between those school pick up times and the dreaded 5.30 (that point of the day where children become tired little monsters) is never really when I'm at my best as a cook.  On the weekends however our kitchen becomes a whole different place.  There is time for us all to spend cooking, baking and playing. The mr has time to prepare extravagant, long winded recipes (he's a fab cook, but really does require about 3 hours to prepare a meal, oh and someone to go in every 30 minutes to clear up after him to avoid complete disaster).  Milo can bake, with assistance, and come up with his own wild recipes and we can do all these together.

Yesterday was a perfect example of how much use our kitchen can get on a weekend day and how much fun it can be.

First up, we made muffins for a very late breakfast.  Using a selection of fruits which were starting to head past their best, between the 3 of us, we put together a delicious recipe for peach and strawberry muffins, we all loved.

A little bit later on Milo and Johnny held a football match, using the doors at either end as goals.  I try to avoid watching this activity and they do use a very small, soft ball for this purpose, though I'm still not sure I entirely approve.

For lunch Milo made everyone sandwiches, this is favourite thing to do at the moment, other than slicing the bread and depending on what's going in the sandwiches, this is something he can pretty much do entirely by himself and he is very proud of this little step into independence.

Then we covered everything in plastic and set about dyeing some yarn.  Milo has been admiring my recently finished shawls and has decided he wants one of his own, in the colour of fire.  We used Kool Aid, so it was completely harmless for Milo to assist with and had a huge amount of fun.  We even had some dye left at the end so were able to tie dye a couple of t-shirts for Milo too.

I really do love our kitchen most of the time, it's the perfect space for our little family, but during the weekend is when it really comes alive.

This post is an entry for the “My Kitchen Story” Linky Challenge, sponsored by Fairy Platinum.

my boy the chef ::

one of Milo's main christmas gifts was a little kitchen unit.  It's super special because it was handmade by one of our friends for his son and it's perfect for my boy who loves to help in the kitchen.

To accompany the kitchen we got Milo some of these lovely wooden slicing fruits and just 2 days before christmas I decided to stitch him up an apron, hat and oven mitt!

I used (though really I should say that I glanced at for inspiration) these patterns for the hat and the apron.  I really must reiterate that I didn't actually use this pattern, if I had I'm sure it would have turned out a whole lot better, the hat at least I'm sure, I only used it for inspiration.  I wouldn't want you thinking badly of the pattern, because of my bad workmanship!

The oven mitt I made all from my head!  I might try and post a small tutorial here at some point in the future if I make any more.

Most of the fabric I already had stashed away, the lovely kawaii fabric came from mine and my Mum's etsy shop, and the blue ribbon actually came from my step brothers wedding cake.  I suddenly realised this in the midst of stitching it in to the apron!

I wasn't sure at first whether he would actually like dressing up in these bits, but I'm pleased to say he loves it!  Watching put his little had in the mitt, declare 'hot' and then open his play oven, makes my heart swell!