Forget About the Oven: Fridge Cooking With Your Kids

Treasured memories of childhood often involve time spent in the kitchen creating new recipes and making a mess. There are so many recipes you can make, all scrumptious and easy.

The following recipes are ideal for making with the kids. As well as being simple, instead of using the oven, involve the average American fridge freezer!

Going classic: chocolate fridge cake

For this you’ll need the following:

250g/8oz digestives

150g/5oz milk chocolate

150g/5oz dark chocolate

150g/5oz golden syrup

100g/3½oz unsalted butter

100g/3½oz chopped dried apricots

75g/2½oz raisins

60g/2oz pecans (can be chopped or whole)

Line a shallow 20cm (8in) square-shaped tin with cling film, taking care to leave some hanging over the sides. Then bash the biscuits into pieces with a rolling pin. Meanwhile, you should melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a heatproof bowl, this bowl being set over a pan of simmering water. You should then remove the bowl from the pan and stir in the broken biscuits, apricots, raisins and, if you wish, the pecans, before spooning the mixture into the tin. Level it by using a potato masher to press the mixture down. From there, leave it to cool, and then put in the fridge for between one and two hours to set. Once you’ve taken off the cling film, how you choose to divide is completely your choice!

This recipe is great and involves no baking. It’s versatile, too, because you can swap or remove ingredients if your children are a bit picky. The best bit is smashing up the biscuits with a rolling pin: what activity could be more suitable for a messy child! There’s also a good mashing role when leveling out the cake!

Surviving the hot summer: with popsicles!

Did you know it’s really easy to make your own icy popsicles with your kids? It’s so simple: all you need is some tasty fruit juice and some plastic molds available from any good home store. You pour the fruit juice (or whatever ingredient you want in your popsicle) into the mound, and voilà: pop them in the freezer and wait for them to freeze! One of the best things about this is that you know exactly what ingredients are going into the popsicles: they’re a healthy fruity treat without any additives or hidden ingredients.

Making recipes with the fridge and freezer is great fun, and a simple way to introduce your child to cooking and the kitchen. The best part is eating the fruits of your labors!

[Image: dsleeter_2000]