Recipe - Iced "Party" Ring Biscuits

Iced "Party" Ring Biscuits

Whenever I take the boys with me to do the food shop one of the first things they will ask for is Foxs Party Rings biscuits. With their bright colourful designs they tend to be quite popular with kiddies.

I decided to take a look on the internet for recipes and managed to find a very helpful one on Good Housekeeping. They are easy to bake and lots of fun to decorate. You can use your favourite basic biscuit recipe or you can use this one which I took from the website:

Ingredients:

• 200g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extra/flavouring

Makes about 30 biscuits.

1) First, take all of your ingredients and place them in a bowl and mix until combined.
2) Tip out your dough onto a work surface and knead until you get a smooth dough that you can easily roll out later.
3) Wrap your biscuit dough in cling film and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes. This will help the dough to keep its shape when it's cooking in the oven.
4) Pre-heat your oven to 180c(160c fan) or gas mark 4.
5) Take your biscuit dough out of the fridge and sprinkle some flour onto your work surface. Roll out the dough until it's about 5mm thick all over.
6) Take two round cookie cutters in the size you want your biscuits to be in, one slight smaller than the other. Stamp out your biscuits with the larger cutter making sure you use the smaller one to make a ring effect.
7) Place onto a sheet tray lined with greasproof paper and bake for 12 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly golden in colour.
8) Once cooked, place onto a cooling wrack until cool to touch.

This is what you should have so far, some yummy looking buscuits:

Next you will need:

• 300g icing sugar (Royal icing is best but not essential. Royal icing hardens more when dry)
• 1tbsp vanilla extract/flavouring (or whatever flavour you like!)
• Food colourings in your choice of colours (I use Suagrflair colour pastes)

Place the icing sugar in a bowl and gradually add a little bit of water at a time until you get a thick, spreadable consistency. Add vanilla flavouring, or whatever flavour you like, and mix well. Separate into enough bowls for however many colours you want to use and colour with the food colourings.

On with the decorating!

Start by taking a biscuit ring and spread one colour over the biscuit to completly cover the top surface. You could use a cutlery knife, spoon or whatever is easier for you.

Next, take a different colour and drizzle a few lines over the iced biscuit to give it a bit of contrast (I'm not so neat at this part!).

Take a tooth pick and draw it across the icing to give it a feathered effect. Do this as many time as you like until you get the apprearence you want.

Continue these steps until all your biscuits are iced. You can make as many different colour combinations as you like.

I hope you like our little how-to guide and if you do make some of your own I would love to see your creations!

Have fun :D

Disney Junior VIP Summer Party 2014

Today we attended one of Disney Junior VIP summer parties for 2014. Lot's of people entered a contest to win tickets and we were one of the lucky winners! The prize was for tickets for 1 adult and 2 little ones to attend at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens venue.

I took Wyatt along with me as well as my little niece, Lily-Mai and on arrival we were greeted by some lovely members of the Disney team who gave us all a special wrist band and were shown to the function were everything was being held. 

There was lots of little stations with activities for the kiddies to do.

Wyatt's favourite activity was Jake's treasure game. He had to through juggle balls at several buckets filled with gold dubloons to put them in the team treasure chest. It took some time to get him to move on to the other activity stations ;)

Lily-Mai's favourite activity was making her own special amulet, just like Princess Sofia's. I ended up with 6 of them hung around me neck!

Other activities including building blocks...

Colouring their favourite playhouse characters...

Helping Doc McStuffing diagnose her patients...

and learning about different food groups with the activity plates.

There were also lots of characters to have their photos taken with but unfortunately I couldn't persuade either of my little ones to do this as they aren't a big fan of people in costumes at the moment.

I did however get them to sit still long enough to take their picture on Princess Sofia's throne.

At the end of the party all the little ones were given a lunchbox to take away with them and a goody bag each.

This is the loot in each goody bag. It included a DVD, stickers, Disney magazine, Henry Huggle Monster bag, inflatable sword and lots more. Wyatt and Lily-Mai were very happy with all their goodies ;)

All in all the kids had lots of fun participating all the activities and we are very grateful to Disney Junior for giving us the chance to attend one of this years events x

Stay Play Explore - Family Fun Short Break

Stay Play Explore - Family Fun Short Break

This week we took our little family on our first short break away together and decided to take advantage of the Stay Play Explore offer in Leicestershire.

They offer various types of mini breaks including family adventure, gourmet taste and theme parks but we chose the family fun option. This consisted of tickets for a family of 4 to 3 out of 5 attractions based in Leicestershire and includes an overnight stay at a 4* hotel with breakfast included for just £109!

The attractions to choose from were:

• Conkers
• Twinlakes Theme Park
• Snibston Discovery Museum
• National Space Centre
• Twycross Zoo

We chose Twinlakes, Snibston Discovery Museum and Twycross Zoo and stayed at the Hinckley Island Hotel. We also decided to book an extra night so we wouldn't be rushed to visit all 3 attractions in just 2 days which cost us an extra £70.

Snibston Discover Museum

Snibston Discovery Museum is a hands on kind of museum with many different kinds of interactive exhibits featuring trains, mining, toys and engineering. 

(Adam learning how waves are made)

Outside they have a very large play area that also lots of way to discover and learn whilst having fun.

You can also take a tour of the colliery with an ex-miner, visit the century theatre or take a train ride on "Pitt" the diesel locomotive.

One of the areas outside we particular enjoyed was being able to have our picnic on old train wagon!

Twinlakes Theme Park

Twinlakes is set in 100 acres of countryside and features many family rides, attractions, animals and birds to see. Indoor play areas are great for when the weather isn't so fantastic and there is also a water play area for days when the sun is shinning. 

Our two boys (and their daddy!) had a blast on all the different rides!

Twycross Zoo

Twycross Zoo is set on 80 acres of land and features over 150 different species to see and learn about including many endangered species.

The zoo is a renowned world primate centre with a wide variety of species on show.

Throughout the day there are animal feedings that you can watch. We chose to watch the adorable Humboldt penguins having their lunch which the kids adored seeing. The zoo keepers gave us lots of facts about the penguins and we learnt lots of stuff we'd never known about them befor.

The butterfly house was a favourite and it was lovely walking through and seeing all the different bright and colourful butterflies fluttering around us.

Overall Verdict

We would definitely recommend booking a short break with Stay Play Explore as it'd fantastic value for money and there are lots of options to meet all families needs.

GIVEAWAY - Bath Time Buddies Review & Giveaway

The Bathtime Buddies range by H&A is a great collection of bath time goodies designed to bring fun and education to your childs wash routine. 

I have had the chance to try a few of products with my 2 little boys and I was pleasantly surprised by how much they love using each and every one of them! The following are but a few of the range that we tried and tested:

Bathtime Buddies Clock

We found this clock to be very useful for two different things for both of the boys. For Adam(7) it was great for helping him come to grips with telling the time. For our little Wyatt(3) it was great for teaching him to count to 12 and learning what order numbers should be placed in on the clock face. The only problem we had with the clock is that we couldn't get it to stick to bath tiles like stated but I'm thinking maybe our tiles are too small for to adhere to properly?

Bathtime Buddies Squirting Ducks

I just love how bright and colourful these are! They look adorable floating around in the bath and my kids definitely enjoyed squirting each other(and mummy!) with them. On occasion you would hear "ugh it's weeing!" and the lots of giggles of the boys lol!

Bathtime Buddies Wash Buddy

These fab little wash buddies come in the shape of a frog and a duck. These were particularly helpful with making the washing process a bit more fun than using your usual boring old flannel. The boys also enjoyed pretending to wash different parts of their wash buddies bodies as well as their own which was good for encouraging them to learn what different parts of the body were called. 

GIVEAWAY!

I have a lovely brand new pack of Bathtime Buddies Bath Crayons to give away to one lucky follower of my blog. These fab little crayons are great for encouraging your child to be artistic in the bath, learning different colours, are washable and safe for use on skin. To be in with a chance of winning simply fill in one or more of the options on the following Rafflectopter. Please note this giveaway is only open to residents of mainland UK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway