Comic Relief cookies: Activity plan

We've got a new guide starting on Tuesday, and I always like to make sure that there's something interesting happening when we know we have a new girl joining us. Especially if she's not been a Brownie. If you're not used to Guiding coming face-to-face with 20 noisy and slightly hyperactive girls that you've not met before can feel a bit overwhelming, so it's good to know I've got something in hand. 

Of course it's Comic Relief next week, so my thoughts have naturally hopped to red nose based baking (come back tomorrow for fairy cakes) In order to get all the Guides done with a batch whatever we made had to be a quick bake  - these take 15 minutes in the oven tops. As always they're cheap to make - 1 batch should make enough for 2 patrols of 6-8 girls, so you should only need 2 sets of ingredients. If you've got more than 24 girls I'd do another lot. 

	For reference, Guides are aged 10 – 14 Break the girls up into Patrols/ groups of 6-8
Red nose cookies
Equipment: Round cookie cutter/ or a clean cup or mug Baking trays Greaseproof paper rolling pin Mixing bowl Electric beaters or strong arms Clean hands
Ingredients: 750g plain flour 250g butter (Basics/ Economy butter is perfect – but make sure it’s well softened) 250g caster sugar 1 egg 1/2 tsp vanilla essence/extract This makes about 30 cookies (depending on your cutter size) so should split between 2 patrols of 6-8 girls. I've done costings for 2 batches, working on the basis of 4 patrols.	If doing this with Guides it is an ideal Patrol cooking activity – they could do challenges to earn or win the ingredients. Or you could challenge them to do the most creative Comic relief themed icing
Instructions: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C Wash your hands Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy Beat the egg and add in Add the vanilla and beat again Add the flour in thirds beating well to combine Tip the dough onto a floured worktop/ a table Roll out until about 1cm thick and cut out as many circles as you can (with the cup, mug or scone cutter) before re-rolling the trimmings and repeating until you have used up all your dough Line your baking sheets with greaseproof Put the cookies on the tray and put them in the preheated oven for 13 minutes. If they’re not golden, then give them a couple more minutes.	Safety notes: Make sure that the girls are supervised in the kitchen.  And that they don’t leave you the washing up! For Brownies/ younger Guides – or if you have shorter meetings: You could make these in advance, and get the girls to ice and decorate them. You could even get rich tea biscuits and get the girls to decorate those if you don't have much in the way of space, time or kitchen equipment. Usual kitchen safety rules/ washing up apply.
Decorating ideas ·         Why not make glace icing, and use red food colouring to dye it red? ·         Or find the girls a selection of icing and coloured sweets and see what they come up with? Notes: You could always sell these as a fundraiser, I reckon you could sell them for 50p each – unless you’ve got some potential candidates for The Apprentice, in which case the sky’s the limit!  Costings - I've checked out on mysupermarket.co.uk and Asda is the cheapest, coming in at £6.02 for 2 batches which works out at 25p per head in a unit of 24 girls

Olympic foodiness for little fingers: part two

Just so you don't think we're always angelic, fruit eating, tidy peoples at my Brownies, here are tonight's creations. Olympic flag cakes

Excuse the iPhone photos, I forgot to take my fancy camera to Brownies

	For reference, Brownies are aged 7-10 Break the girls up into their Sixes, with one leader per Six
Flag cakes
Equipment: Clean hands Antibacterial spray for tables or placemats that can be washed One traybake sponge cake Glace icing Coloured fondant icing: red, yellow, blue, green and black
Cake ingredients – one batch for a unit of 12 4oz butter (Sainsbury’s economy butter is the best and cheap) 4 oz caster sugar 2 large eggs (beaten) 4oz self raising flour Glace icing 100g sieved icing sugar 2 tbsps water Preheat oven to 170 degrees Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy Add the egg, and beat to incorporate, using a spoonful of flour with each egg. If it’s not quite a dropping consistency, add some boiled water (just a spoonful or two) Baked in a greased and lined roasting tin, for about 20-30 minutes this makes a flattish sponge (hence no additional raising agent) which, when cut into squares is a perfect base for flags. Top the cake with the icing, make by beating the water, little by little into the icing sugar until you get a white paste. Smooth over so you can portion up the cake into 12 flag shaped pieces	If doing this with Guides it is an ideal Patrol cooking activity. Because Brownies is a shorter session and you need the cakes to cook to ice them, we made the cake and did the glace icing. Allergy notes: We use a dairy substitute (normally Pure or sunflower spread) if we have any dairy allergies. This also works with gluten free flour, but may need some extra liquid – milk or water. Just add an extra tablespoon and see how you go. Usual kitchen safety rules/ washing up apply
Olympic rings Give each girl a small peice (about 2cm square) of coloured fondant icing, one red, green, blue, yellow and black. Sprinkle some icing sugar in front of each girl for her to dust her hands and placemat/ clean portion of the table with Get each Brownie to roll out her icing into a sausage shape and then make that into a ring Lay the rings on the iced cake in the same order that they do on the Olympic flag. The girls can overlap their rings if they want to be authentic, but don’t worry if they don’t want to – it’s just about doing their best. Put each ‘flag’ onto a slightly bigger square of greaseproof paper and ask each girl to write her name on hers. Put to one side, and make sure they remember to take them home!	.