Another favourite recipe of Sophie & Ryan, is cheese straws.  Sometimes it's nice to get the kids baking something savoury for a change!

The finished product, nom nom!

Ingredients

• 8oz self-raising flour 
• 3oz hard margarine/butter 
• pinch of salt 
• 6oz grated cheese (a strong cheddar gives the best flavour) 
• 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of milk
• Optional extras- 1-3 teaspoons of mustard (the little sachets of mustard you can get in pubs/cafes work quite well), or small amount of chilli powder

Getting busy stirring the dough

Method

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 350-375f/gas mark 4-5 and grease a baking tray
2. Mix flour & salt, then rub in the margarine/butter 
3. Mix in the grated cheese & mix to a stiff paste with beaten egg & milk. (I tend to beat in the mustard too at this point)
4. Roll out thinly & cut into narrow fingers (or other shapes if you're feeling fancy!) 
5. Place on the greased baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes until brown.
6. Leave to cool, then enjoy

Rolling out the dough

Crafty activities are always popular during the school holidays, and are always handy for those wet days!  While at Tesco doing the weekly shop, I had a nosey down the craft and stationery aisle (because I'm a stationery nut!) and noticed they've recently rebranded all of their craft range, and introduced some fantastic new kits ready for the summer holidays.  The bonus of all this, is they had a lot of their old branded range reduced.  I resisted a massive splurge, but had to buy the last glue stick- 15p!! (I always need glue sticks at work, but can never find them as my colleagues have a habit of borrowing them and forgetting to put them back in my drawer!)  So definitely worth a look in your local larger Tesco for bargain craft goodies.

The new range currently has a 3 for 2 offer on a range of craft essentials- poster paint, pva glue, paint brushes, rubbers, pencils, felt-pens, mini notebooks...

I love the range of paint colours- there's the bog standard primary colours, plus pearlescent, metallic, and neon.  All for £1 each (although pack sizes vary- basic colours having 300ml & fancier ones being 150ml) plus they're all included in the 3 for 2!

Photos courtesy of Tesco.com

The new range also has some fab eco craft sets where they can use everyday projects combined with the kit contents to make some gorgeous items.  My favourites are probably the Loo Roll Owl Family kit, and the Milk Bottle Jumbo kit.  There's also a Fabric Conditioner Piggy Bank, Hunk of Junk Pirate Island, Rocket Bottle jet pack & Fancy Fish CD mobile.  All of the kits are £3.50 each, which is very reasonable.  Unfortunately, the Tesco website doesn't seem to have these kits in stock, but they should be available in larger store.

This post is in no way affiliated with Tesco, and has not been paid for.  This is my own opinion and is purely for information.

I'm hoping to do a few holiday fun related posts of things I've tried and tested either at work or with my friends' children.  Sophie (a friend's daughter) has always loved baking with me, so I thought I'd share one of her favourite things to make first- fairy cakes.



Ingredients

• 110g/4oz softened butter or margarine
• 110g/4oz caster sugar
• 110g 4oz self-raising flour
• 2 lightly beaten eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1-2 tablespoons milk

For the icing

• 300g/10 1/2 oz icing sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons water 

 Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line 2 12hole cake tins with cases (either paper or silicone)
2. Cream the butter an sugar together until pale and fluffy
3. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and add the vanilla essence
4.  Carefully fold in the flour.  Add small amounts of milk if needed so that the mixture is not too thick
5. Spoon the mixture into the cake cases until about half full
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown (or carefully stick a skewer or fork in- if they come out clean the cakes are done)
7. Set aside to cool
8. To make the icing sift the icing sugar into a bowl & add in enough water to make a smooth mixture

Now comes the fun part- decorating!  You're just limited here to what you can buy in the shops- supermarket baking aisles are full of a variety of things.  In the past we've used jelly diamonds, chocolate stars, Smarties, mini chocolate drops/chocolate shavings, hundreds & thousands, Skittles......the list is endless!