This year, Shrove Tuesday or as it’s better known now as pancake day, conveniently fell on one of our Ashmole session times.
Pancakes are easy to make. Mixing eggs, milk and flour will almost always give you a good result. However, through making this easy and rewarding dish much more can be learned and achieved.
The children were divided into groups of three (apart from the five boys who were in a group together). Working together, each group got a basic pancake recipe to follow. The quantity in each recipe was for two people, and as the groups were bigger, the groups had to multiply the quantities depending on their number of members, and then proceed to make the batter.
Out of the batch of pancakes made, one was to be decorated and entered into a competition for the best tasting and looking pancake. Mums who conveniently were around then, got to judge and pick the winning team. It was impressive to see the boys’ team win. In the past sessions the girls seemed to be better at collaboration but this wasn’t the case on the day.
The children demonstrated how they can get on independently with following recipes, doing maths and working well in teams. The most rewarding part for me however, was to see how confident these children now seem throughout the cooking process. They are not phased by any task given. In future they may not remember each recipe we cooked together. But I hope and believe that the independence and confidence around food and cooking is something that will stay with them into adulthood.
