YOGURT

This is very interesting for the children as they learn how the milk ferments. Frankly it is more interesting for them if the recipe fails and you try it a couple of times, so that they see that you need to keep the bacteria alive and at the right temperature for the fermentation process. We have tried a few methods for this but this one finally worked.

You need:
- 1 l of milk (full fat)
- one pot (small) of live natural yogurt
- 1 tablespoon of powdered milk.

Old yogurt pots (you can also do it in a glass bowl). Sterilise the pots  by rinsing them with water and getting them in the microwave (highest set) for one and a half minutes.

Hear the milk to 45-50 degrees. then add the yogurt and the powdered milk and mix well. Pour this into the yogurt pots. We then got a thermal bag and poured two kettles full of boiling water in it so that it warmed up (you can also do this with any normal pan). We got rid of the boiling water, put the yogurt pots into the thermal bag, closed the bag and put it beside the boiler covered with a piece of cloth for the whole night. Then put them into the fridge and let them rest for a few hours. The yogurts came our really well, creamy but not two thick, and no lumps. If you like it thicker then add another tablespoon of powdered milk.

HOJUELAS

This is a traditional Easter dessert in Spain. One of my aunts used to make endless trays of these each Easter (which has a lot of merit as you need a considerable amount of patience to make them).
They are meant to be as thin as paper and they should break into little pieces when you eat them.

You need:
-125 gr of plain flour
- one egg
-the measurement of the egg shell (one half) of sunflower oil
- the measurement of the egg shell (one half) of tequila, sambuca or vodka (in Spain we use 'orujo' but it is difficult to find this in the UK)
-1 tablespoon of sugar
- a pinch of salt
- a quarter of a teaspoon of red wine vinegar
- lots of olive oil (refined, not virgin) to fry them
- lots of caster sugar

Mix the egg, oil, tequila (or similar) and vinegar and beat well. Then add the salt, sugar and finally the flour. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
Heat  the olive oil in a frying pan over medium to high heat.
Get little balls of the dough (the size of a walnut). Put the dough balls in between two pieces of baking paper and roll them out as thinly as possible with a rolling pin. Take the upper bit of paper off and peel the pastry carefully. Put the pastry into the olive oil and fry it until each hojuela gets golden. This takes only one minute or so on each side, but you need to turn them around (which is very easy as they harden almost immediately).
Remember that the oil should be very hot and you should get big bubbles in each hojuela as soon as they touch the hot oil (see the picture)
When they are golden take the hojuelas off the pan, put them on kitchen paper to get rid of the excess oil and sprinkle them with sugar (naturally the more sugar you use the better they taste) as soon as you get them off the pan.

The children helped rolling out the pastry, which is a big help, but be very careful with the oil as it is very hot. They did not really like them though, which is weird, as they taste a bit like churros, which they love.