With Halloween fast approaching, pupils at Buckholme Towers School have created a gruesomely ghoulish recipe to indulge the ghosts and witches knocking at your door on October 31.
Twelve nursery pupils aged three to four years old at the Lower Parkstone School, tried and tested the Spicy Halloween Biscuits that are satisfyingly scary for those trick-or-treating.
Miss Salter, nursery leader, and teaching assistants Mrs Moy and Mrs Farley helped the nursery children when making the recipe containing spiders’ eggs and cobweb flour. Laughter and screams could be heard throughout the animated cookery lesson as Miss Salter introduced the spooky ingredients. She said: “The pupils have cooking lessons once a week and we thought the Halloween theme would inject some fun into baking and teach the children different cooking and decorating skills.”
Miss Salter and pupil
The pupils shaped their biscuits with skull, spider and pumpkin cutters and took them home to their parents.
In other cookery lessons the nursery pupils have made recipes ranging from butternut squash bread to fruit smoothies. The classes cover topics included in the National Curriculum and help young children to learn about healthy eating.
Headmaster Iain Robertson viewing the finished biscuits
Spicy Halloween Biscuits
Ingredients
250g (9oz) ‘dusty cobweb’ plain flour
1 dessert spoon ground spicy cinnamon
½ teaspoon ‘slug’ salt
125g (4 ½ oz) ‘creepy’ butter (softened)
100g (4oz) ‘spider egg’ caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ‘witch’s’ egg beaten (that is 400 years old)
Method
- Sift together the cobweb flour, spicy cinnamon and slug salt into a large bowl. Rub in the butter with a fork until mixture becomes crumbly. Add spider egg sugar and vanilla extract and mix to a stiff paste. Mix in the witch’s egg. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth. (If you don’t wish to use the dough straight away it can be chilled in the fridge, just wrap in cling film).
- Pre-heat the cauldron (or oven) to 180c / gas mark 4 and grease baking trays. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into your favourite shapes.
- Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly golden in colour. Let them cool on a wire rack.
The nursery class nursery leader and teaching assistants with their finished biscuits
Serves 24 witches
Preparation time 20 minutes
Decorate as desired. Ensure that your slugs are fresh!