BUTTER

This is really interesting for children to see. You just need to get double cream into a glass jar with a lid (fill it only to three quarters of the jar or so). Keep shaking it for 10 minutes: first you will see that the cream thickens and becomes like a really heavy paste; after a little bit longer the texture changes completely and you get a solid ball of butter floating in clear liquid.  Get rid of the liquid (it is bitter) and put the butter under tap water to get rid of any remaining bitterness. You can eat this immediately afterwards. The kids thought this was a 'science experiment' rather than cooking...

SNOWMEN CUPCAKES

We got the idea for these cupcakes from an Annabel Karmel recipe (slightly adapted). These are for a school cake sale. You need:

For the cupcakes:

125 grs of butter,

125 grs of sugar

125 gr self-raising flour

2 eggs

2 table spoons milk

optional: half a teaspoon of vanilla or lemon extract

For the decoration:

one tub of royal icing

a marshmallow per cupcake

a sugary snake cut into a long strip per cupcake

silver buttons

an orange piece of candy, sugar or chocolate button per cupcake

liquorish or similar for the hats and little bits of black sugar icing for the eyes 

Mix all the cupcake ingredients in a food processor and mix well. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees. Put the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for 20 minutes. This should make 12 cupcakes.

You can do the decoration just by looking at the picture...