Recently I was asked to try out and review a couple of recipes from Ooberkids' Pocket Money Cookery. OoberkidsRepublic is an online community for primary aged children that helps them with homework and gives them educational ideas for activities both on and away from the computer screen! It's definitely a site Midge was interested in and I think we shall consider signing up to look at it more closely.
First, we looked through the recipes and loved the names CeCi (the author) had given her creations. All of the recipes in Pocket Money Cookery are from CeCi's childhood and I always think it's lovely to include childhood recipes in cookery books. There's not one or two recipes from her childhood but the whole book is full of them! All of the titles in the book made us wonder what the story was behind them so it's great that we could find this out with CeCi's 'Curiosity Corner,' where she explains either about the name given to her dish or about a part of the recipe itself.
Pocket Money Cookery also features Childhood Nutrition Therapist Jessica Scott, who explains after every recipe the benefits of each dish in a child friendly way which I think is great because older children can easily read this simple information and the fun facts about the food they're cooking with and going to eat!
All of the recipes in this cookery book are easy to follow with clear, simple, step by step instructions. An older child (definitely 10+) would need very little adult assistance and with children slightly younger who are able to read I think they would still only need a little adult input and perhaps some prep help.
This book isn't really aimed at my 3 year old and he wasn't particularly interested but my six year old, Midge, was a lot more enthusiastic about making some of the dishes. The two dishes we chose were:
Winter Mud Dessert
Mozzarella on a Scooter
Winter Mud Dessert was so straight forward and easy to make. I changed the recipe a little because none of us like ginger and I used tinned fruit instead of fresh (end of the shopping week and tinned is cheaper!) The dessert was delicious, we all enjoyed it.
Mozzarella on a Scooter was again really easy to cook. I haven't used Mozzarella in my cooking much unless making a super cheesy pasta or a pizza for Hubby. Including egg, brown bread (we used gluten free white bread) and melted mozzarella, this was a refreshing and quick lunch. Everyone loved it, I couldn't eat it because I can't eat milk products (I did try the eggy bread though!)
Having said that, I loved the idea behind the book, I love the recipes and their creative names. I really like how the book encourages hygiene, is super easy to follow and the inclusion of food facts and child friendly nutritional explanation is just brilliant.
You can purchase your Pocket Money Cookery book here for £7.00. Ooberkids have generously given me a copy of Pocket Money Cookery to give away right here on the blog! So follow the Rafflecopter instructions carefully and good luck!
(UK only.)
Cupcake Mumma