Gluten Free Dinosaur Cakes

At The Imagination Tree, we believe that all children should be encouraged to cook, bake and explore foods. It's a brilliant way for them to learn about different foods, about healthy eating and it's an oppurtunity to make a lot of mess - and what child should be denied that? ;) 

I have a daughter who loves dinosaurs, so I thought up this twist on the traditional Butterfly Cake.
 

They are gluten free, but if you would like them to be made with normal flour - simply substitute the type of flour you use!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients -

3oz Butter

3oz Sugar

5oz Gluten Free Plain Flour

1tbsp Baking Powder
Chocolate Chips - double check ingredients, most are gluten free but not all, however
most supermarkets do Free From versions.

Vanilla Essence (the best quality you can afford - it makes all the difference!)

Buttercream (either homemade or shop bought, it doesn't really matter!)

1 -  Pre-heat the oven to 190°

2 - Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl.

3 - Beat the egg and add to the mixture.

4 - Sieve the dry ingredients into the mixture, folding them in as you go.

5 - Add the vanilla essence.

6 - Split the mixture between 8 muffin cases, each case should be about half full. 

7 - Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, once they are golden brown they should be done. Stick a knife or

skewer in to make sure, if it comes out clean - they are ready!

8 - Once the cakes are cooled, cut out a small wedge from the top of each cake. Put this to one side, this will

be used to make the dinosaur.

9 - Fill the cavity with the buttercream.

10 - Cut the separate wedge into three little triangles, and stick two into the buttercream to make the spikes 

on the dinosaurs back, and use the third triangle as the face. 

11. Dab two chocolate chips into buttercream, and stick them to the face.

12. Your dinosaur cakes are ready! A delicious treat for little ones!

I had fun making these with my daughter, they are easy to make so it's quite easy for little ones to join in!

This recipe is available as a Children's Recipe Card. It is part of our Gluten Free Cooking Pack for children, which will be available for purchase next month! We are giving this recipe away as a free printable PDF.

Here is the link - download the file, and print it off for your child!

Dinosaur Cake Recipe Card

Making Faces

I thought that Making Faces would be a fun activity for my daughter, as she had started to regularly identify facial features. Not just on herself, or her family, but on literally anything with a face. It is simply hilarious to her that cats have 'triangle' noses, she is fascinated with different hairstyles and one morning I found a face made out of carefully placed babywipes!

 

The 'BabyWipe' Face

So, I found a brilliant Sponge Painting Set on Yellow Moon, and we had a lot of fun with them making pictures. 

What you need:

• Making Faces Sponge Painting Set or simply cut up some old sponges/cardboard and makethe shapes yourself!
• Poster Paints in a variety of colours.
• Lots of paper - I would recommend sugar paper for this activity, it's far more durable and holds the paint really well!

Make sure to put down lots of newspaper or and oilcloth cover, it's going to get messy!

I think that this one is my favourite, anybody else think he looks like some kind of 80's pop star?

Just a few of the sponges we used, my daughter particularly liked the Glasses one!

We found that the day after doing this activity, our daughter began drawing faces herself! 

Sometimes, when you see that an idea has been planted in their brains...such as beginning to recognise facial features, if you encourage it a little, water the little seed that's been planted, it will grown quickly into something more!