As a child I always made my grandparents a box of sweet treats. I would spend the day in the kitchen and prepare these goodies with lots of love. They would then be put into a little cardbox that Christmas cards came in. I really enjoyed making them for many years. My recipes were all trial and error and included chocolate dipped glacé cherries and marshmallows. I know my grandparents appreciated them and still they mention them now. Therefore when Waitrose asked if I’d like to get involved and make some goodies I was immediately transported back to my childhood and the nostalgia set in! Waitrose have made it easy by sharing Christmas recipes to make on their website. I decided, along with Erin who is off school with a another chest infection, to try some new ideas and incorporate my childhood sweets.
To get us started Waitrose sent me a hamper of goodies.
I had big plans, but I forget Erin is still only five and she wanted demanded to be able to do it all herself. thankfully she could, maybe not to the finest detail I had planned but sometimes you have to accept that little hands want to do it themselves. It may not look as perfect as you had imagined in your head, but it was made with love, enthusiasm and lots of mess!
One thing I hadn’t done before is sugar craft but after seeing Liz’s post on peppermint cream snowflakes I decided to add this to my efforts as I knew Erin could do this. It is also a really good activity for developing fine motor skills in young children.
For ease of little fingers we just added them to biscuits and stuck them on with a blob of melted chocolate. Erin rather enjoyed dunking the biscuits in chocolate too!
We also had a go at decorating marshmallows. this is one of my favourite treats and is super easy for young children to do.
We decorated with some Waitrose holly cake decorators
Finally we also decorated some ready made cakes using the edible rice paper woodland friends wafers.
This was a lovely way to spend time with Erin whilst it was just the two of us. My role was more supervisory which actually on reflection is a good thins. Erin practiced new skills and really enjoyed the activity. The older two approved as they tucked in when they were home from school for a Friday treat! We have decided that we will definitely do this again in December and give them to their great grandparents, it will be a lovely reminder of what I used to do when I was a child.
Disclosure: Waitrose gifted me the hamper and a voucher to make the treats. Thoughts, pictures and words all my own.
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