spring

baking, cooking with kids, crafts, easter, kids

 With Spring almost here, and Easter around the corner, we thought we’d rustle up some rabbit cookies – or bunny biscuits as we’ve named them! It was a great introduction for 9yo to practice his royal icing piping, and ‘flooding in’ – we learnt a LOT about icing technique!

bunny biscuits royal icing

There are LOADS of bunny cookie cutters around at the moment, we had one which was my Mum’s and for the tail you could use a flower cutter, or a small circle…

We used up some royal icing which had been in the fridge for a couple of days, and we have some TOP TIPS for you about this…see below!

Ingredients:

50g fairtrade caster sugar
100g butter
175g plain flour

Method:

Heat the oven to 150 degrees C (300 F, Gas mark 2)
Cream the caster sugar and the butter together, slowly adding the flour, mixing together to form a dough, I find we need to add a couple of drops of water, knead together to form a ball.

Roll out the dough, on a floured surface, to about 4mm thick.
Using your bunny shaped cutter, cut the dough, and place your bunnies and tails on a lightly floured baking tray, and bake for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. (feel free to make some spare rabbit tails… to munch on whilst you’re icing the rabbit cookies!)

KidsChaos-Bunny-Biscuits-royal-icing

bunny biscuits

As they cool down, you can make your royal icing (recipe here). Or if you are using some icing which you have been keeping in the fridge, as we were, TOP TIP make sure you really really stir the royal icing to get ALL of the lumps out, otherwise it sticks in the piping bag – and clogs the nozzle so that when you are piping the outline it stutters out, and the line will be all wobbly… 9yo wanted a pale brown bunny, so we mixed in his favourite hot chocolate mix, into a portion of the white royal icing and some more Fairtrade icing sugar, so that it’s quite thick to pipe the outlines. When this outline is dry, you add a drop of water to the remaining brown mixture, so that you can spoon it into the outline, and using a cocktail stick, gently ‘flood’ the biscuit, and prick any little bubble that appear.

Pop the ‘tail’ into position whilst the ‘flood in’ icing on the rabbit cookie is still wet, and pipe on the remaining white royal icing to make a fluffy tail!

red-ted-art-google-plus-hangout-kids-chaos-rabbits

For more Spring baking ideas, check out the daffodil cookies here and if you are after some more rabbit crafts have a look at my denim pocket purse with leaping rabbits here (FREE printable) – and watch our latest google+ hangout hosted by Maggy at Redtedart featuring Anthea, Lizzie, myself and Kelly – a great selection of Bunny Crafts!

For easy to follow instructions on how to make a little gift box from a paper plate, perfect for these cookies, please click here.

Tasty Tuesdays on HonestMum.comAli also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

crafts, easter, FREE printables, kids

Leaping rabbits and hares have a real Spring feel about them don’t they? I’ve been doodling them forever, so I thought I’d put them to good use, and couldn’t get the Chas and Dave song out of my head, (and I fancied a denim pocket purse craft) – Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit – exactly what you do when you are on the telephone? Yep – Soooo, I thought, iPhone wallet?

denim pocket purses

Looking around the house, I came across some old denim jeans in the bag destined for the charity shop, and as we love to upcycle in our house, cut the back pockets off! My quest for a denim pocket purse craft was realised!
Yes? Well I liked it, and so did the kids so I’ve made these for their iPods, using little self-adhesive velcro dots as closings on the inside of the denim pockets, and we’re looking for a use for the little coin denim pocket – ideas welcome? Full instructions below…

FREE leaping rabbit printable

Instructions:

  1. Carefully cut the back pockets out of the denim jeans, so that you retain both layers of fabric, thus creating your OWN denim pocket.
  2. Find (and iron) some contrasting fabric to applique onto the denim pocket purse for the rabbit shapes. (I used some fabric I had acquired from ReUsefulUK and my neighbour RedTedArt‘s hubbies old work shirt.
  3. Print off the FREE printable rabbits template, to the scale you require for the three leaping rabbits to fit comfortably on the back pocket (the scale here is for a man’s jeans, so you may find you need to print at 90% for smaller pockets).
  4. I used Spraymount glue to lightly adhere the rabbit sheet to the BACK of the contrasting fabric, (so that when you remove the paper from the reverse of the rabbits, the rabbits will be facing the right way… your choice!)
  5. Peel the paper template from the back of the rabbits. And position on the denim pockets. I used a PVA glue to stick the rabbits onto the denim pocket purse, and gave them a light coat over the top too…
  6. Add your velcro dots to the inside of the pocket to make a secure closure.

These would make FANTASTIC little denim pocket purse bags for mini-eggs for a quick Easter gift too!

For other Spring and Easter ideas click here for our Daffodil cookies

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello! And I’l adding this to Lizzie’s #MagpieMonday as I love to salvage, upcycle and re-use stuff!