How to poison your kids :0/

So, after my post yesterday about what on earth was I going to do with these kids, I dug this little gem out of the cupboard. They were SO excited, being big Moshi Monsters fans! Normally I wont touch baking-out-of-a-box with a barge pole! But the kids aren't big on concentration levels when it comes to "real" baking and this is just what they like to do. And it only cost £1 so what am I going to lose, right?

Well..... just after lunch I got all the gear out that we needed, opened the box and looked at the different packets inside. Green cake mix - chocolate flavour, while icing mix, green icing mix, coloured wafers for eyes and mouth. Nice.

Moshi Monster Cake Pops, a set on Flickr.

OH! Look at that! This is the cake mix with the egg and water in as directed. It really is that green! The green bowl doesn't enhance it's greenness... I think at this point even the kids were a little sceptical. I took another look a the packaging. Chocolate? Really?? Jack assured me he COULD smell chocolate in it. Tom looked at him like he was mad then asked me; "Chocolate??" Yeah kid, I'm not convinced either!

But we all gave it a good whisk round to get all the lumps out. Maybe we should have sieved it? It was very lumpy... Kids got fed up of whisking and gave me permission to finish off. Thanks boys.

Whisking done and oven warmed up we poured the gloop into my cake tin, where is actually looked even worse! And not very big! I had definitely used the right size tin. Why was it only about 5mm deep? I was filled with worry. I was supposed to bake this for 15mins. Surely it would burn? Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing..... but th kids would be crushed. They were getting excited now that it was going in the oven, even though I explained there was still a LOT to do before we got anything to eat.

Since they were sick of mixing stuff I cracked on and made the butter icing with the packet of white icing mix ready for the next stage, which was not going to be AGES away because not only did the cake mix need to bake but then we had to let it go cold before we did anything else.

Over an hour later and the cake it baked and cool. The kids have almost forgotten about baking, until the timer went off and they shot into the kitchen like a pair of rockets!

They liked this next bit! Breaking the cake up in to tiny bits like breadcrumbs! They got to make a lot of mess! They did a good job too, I was very impressed! Next was MORE mixing, to their disappointment,  but when I said they could get in with their hands to mix the cake crumbs and butter icing together they got in to it! It needed to be one soft, gooey lump that could be split in to six bits and moulded in to shape.

They didn't do too bad of a job either! I was very impressed. Can't say that I was looking forward to eating them though. Green cake... Ummm.... Anyway, there was another long wait to get through. These babies needed half an hour in the fridge to "set", so it was back out of the kitchen for a while.

Once chilled it was time for another gooey bit! More fun for the kids! I mixed up the Green Icing Mix (which looked even worse than the cake mix), shoved plastic weaning spoons into the cake balls to use as lolly pop sticks, and let them get covering the cakes in icing. They did two each, I did one, and Daddy did one (he's come home from work while they were chilling). He looked about as impressed and as tempted by these green things as me :0D

I'd made some holes in an upturned egg box so we had some where to stand the cakes while he icing set, and the kids popped the wafer eyes and mouths out ready to go on, and got decorating.

I'll be honest, at this point I quite liked them! They look cool! Not appetising, but certainly cool!

But now it was another waiting game.... this had taken ALL AFTERNOON! And we still had to wait for the icing to set before we could have a taste of this delightful, chocolaty treat! I got on with making dinner and figured they would do for dessert. The kids were getting hyper... they wanted to eat them NOW! They ate their tea up fast and sat with baited breath for me to being in the fruits of their labour!

Ooooh, their poor disappointed faces..... They were revolting! 

Tom ate half of one of his. Georgie (who is too young to get involved in the baking) took one nibble and refused to touch the rest. Jack, bless him, was determined to give it a really good go. He ate both of his, and what Tom left.

Today he has been sick!

Entertainment Value: 3/5 It was a bit slow

End Product Result: 1/5 NASTY! Looked cool though

Overall Score: 4/10, it took up and afternoon

But now Jack says (as he sits on my knee while I type) "We're never going to bake them again!" I'm sure this hasn't really poisoned him... It could be that he was going to be ill anyway. 

I have another box in the kitchen :0/