Our funky cupcakes with Renshaw Flossie Crums Sugardough

Baking with the kids is something that I've always enjoyed with the Madhouse Mini-testers, but just lately - as you may have noticed in some of our recent baking projects - 3-year-old Pierre has started wanting to get more involved. Using baking kits and other shortcuts is definitely great news when inviting a toddler into the kitchen so I was very pleased to come across these packets of Renshaw Flossie Crums Sugardough that I was sent to review a little while ago.

Yet another of my tried-and-tested baking shortcuts is instant sponge mix. Yes, I know it's simple enough to knock up some cake mix from scratch but the kids always get really excited about doing it all themselves, so just having to crack an egg (then fish out the bits of shell !) and add a few spoonfuls of water makes it a lot easier to avert a baking disaster. Most supermarkets sell these sponge mixes for literally about 25p.

Pierre was on cupcake case duty this time ...

... while Juliette got to whisk up the mix.

You can't be a perfectionist when cooking with young children but it doesn't matter, they always love it, however the cakes turn out !

 

After ten minutes in the oven, they looked like this ! Good enough !

 

The Flossie Crums sugardough is totally aimed at kids. (If you've never heard of Flossie, you can read our review of one of her books here.) We were very impressed to see that not only was it brightly coloured, it was also flavoured so the pink was strawberry tart flavour, brown was chocolate, orange was orange pip and yellow was lemon sherbert. While waiting for the cakes to cool, we all had a nibble of each flavour and everyone thought they were delicious. I particularly loved the zingy citrus ones but the chocolate and strawberry were nice too. It was also great to mix up the flavours, combining orange and lemon or chocolate/orange and chocolate/strawberry.

I covered the table in icing sugar, got out a selection of tiny pastry cutters and rolling pins and let them get on with it. It started off with just Pierre and Juliette but eventually, Sophie and her friend Adrien ended up drifting in to the kitchen and joining in too !

I'm amazed there was enough to cover all the cakes because Juliette couldn't stop eating it and we all kept eating the scraps, rather than rolling it up and starting again !

I was actually very impressed at how pretty our cakes ended up looking - which isn't usually the case when the kids do most of the work themselves !

If you want some homemade and home-iced cakes to offer to grandparents or a teacher as a special gift, this icing would be a fabulous (not to mention fun) way of getting a much more professional - well, pretty at least ! - end result. The Madhouse Mini-testers were all suitably wowed by their creations and couldn't wait to show them to Madhouse Daddy Mike when he got in from work.

We also have another pack of sugardough to use another day, but this time it's just "cool coloured", not flavoured. The Madhouse Mini-testers have already said they want to try their hand at sugardough modelling to try to recreate the animals on the box. It's a great rainy day activity and I was pleasantly surprised by the price (and the taste!).

star rating : 5/5

RRP : £2.49 for 4 x 100g

for more information : http://www.mybakes.co.uk/

Disclosure: I received two packs of sugardough in order to write an honest review.

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Renshaw's Limited Edition Great British Icing Pack review

Flossie Crums' Hidden Treasure Christmas Pudding Cupcakes Recipe

Children's Book Review : The Enchanted Cookie Tree (Flossie Crums : A Baking Adventure)