A round of thank yous

Photo credit - q83

I've got a mounting list of thank yous I need to say so I'm putting it right in just one post.

First off, Warner Brothers sent us a lovely box full of Easter films for the family which arrived on Easter Saturday. They included films like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as some Bugs Bunny and Yogi Bear cartoons. Warner Brothers kindly sent us some mini eggs too but they were gone in about 5 seconds flat so they never even made the photograph! Missy Woo was entranced by Willy Wonka when we had a "cinema night" and I was marvelling at the fact that the children in the film are now all in their 50s! The films certainly kept the children amused during the school holidays, so a huge thank you to them. 

Next, Kellogg's sent me a box of their new cereal Mini Max to try. They're baked wholegrain squares, very similar to another brand which shall remain nameless (because I don't buy that brand), with sugar frosting on the top. The children loved them, although cheekily complained they weren't the chocolate version. The disappointing thing is that I noticed they contain beef gelatine and therefore are not suitable for vegetarians or vegans. I am guessing this has caught a few people out as it's not something you usually check for and it seems strange they can't find a suitable alternative. It doesn't affect us though and the children are delighted with them, so thank you to Kellogg's, mostly from Monkey and Missy Woo. 

Finally, I met the lovely Ruth from The Pink Whisk last week for coffee. She brought along a little present for me - a signed copy of her new book, The Busy Girl's Guide to Cake Decorating which is fab. I've already used some of the instructions to help me make my husband's birthday cake; her chocolate cake recipe has become my go to recipe for that and the book includes quantities and cooking times for different size tins. I know she won't expect me to blog about it but I am anyway because I love the book (especially the dolls throughout the book!) and Ruth is a lovely person who I'm proud to call a friend. So thanks to Ruth and I hope the book sells loads. 

Thank you again to one and all for the lovely things you sent me. 

(I was sent or given the above items as stated in the post. I have not been paid further for mentioning any of these products in this post. I have not been told what to write and all words and opinions are my own. I have included links out of courtesy.) 

Give a child a breakfast - and win a year's supply of cereal for your school's breakfast club!

You may remember that earlier in the year, I blogged about children having breakfast. It was prompted by a bloggers' event arranged by Kellogg's and they shared some shocking statistics about how many children miss breakfast.

Back in September - which seems like ages ago now - they invited a handful of bloggers to a spa at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester. It wasn't all glamour - they shared some information with us having updated their research. 1.7 million children do not have breakfast and 325,000 of those children eat nothing until lunchtime. And of the ones that miss breakfast but eat something beforehand, a sizeable chunk buy chocolate, crisps, even burgers on the way to school. Not great. We all know the benefits of breakfast, both in improved concentration and performance at school, as well as helping to prevent obesity.

Competition: Win tickets to Pandamonium in the Park at Althorp House

The lovely people at Kellogg's offered me some tickets to an event taking place on Saturday 9th July called Pandamonium at the Park at the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire. I can't go but Kellogg's have said I can give away tickets to some lucky readers.

Easter Baking Competition (for kids!) - Win a Kellogg's goody bag - entries and winners

Phew, it's been fraught in the house today! We've been scanning through all the entries for the Easter baking competition for kids we launched about 10 days ago and trying to choose a winner. After a few arguments, (and yes, I do argue with my children, what of it?!) we have come up with a winner.

First and foremost, a big thank you to everyone that did take the time to bake and send us an entry. I thought I'd share them all with you and so have put a little slideshow together. Huge apology to Jack - whatever I do to one of the pictures, and despite preview showing it correctly, it just won't show the photo up the right way.

Some lovely colourful entries there, and very hard to choose between. Soooo..... after much deliberation and arguing, we have chosen a winner of the competition.

And the winner is.....

Matilda and Seth! Well done both - your goody bag will be winging its way to you very soon. 

Thanks again for all the entries and well done to everyone who took part.

Easter Baking Competition (for kids!) - Win a Kellogg's goody bag

You may remember back in January, I went to a Kellogg's event in Manchester and wrote this post about breakfast and the importance of it to children in particular. Since then, Kellogg's have kept in touch and recently, asked me if I would like to receive an Easter surprise. Last weekend, not one but two huge parcels turned up for me. Inside were two goody bags, containing nearly all you need to make some crispy Easter treats - Rice Krispies, marshmallows, dolly mixtures, recipe cards, gingerbread man shaped cutters, gel icing, chef's hat and aprons.

We had a bit of a play today with one of the bags. First Missy Woo dressed appropriately for the occasion:

Then, we set about melting 45g butter and 300g marshmallows (minus one or two the children may have taken) to make Easter Bunnies. The idea was to add 150g Rice Krispies to this mixture then roll into ball shapes. Well, now here's a thing - whatever we did to it, the mixture stuck to our fingers like superglue so I pressed most of it into a tin. Maybe we should have waited. We decided to use the gingerbread cutters to make Krispie men, which was also hard work but after cutting them out, the mix was easier to mould into ball shapes for the bunnies.

Missy Woo decorated the men with the icing pens first.

Then, I left her in the kitchen (yes, I did) to decorate the "Easter Bunnies" her way. And these were her babies.

(Several Dolly mixtures may have been consumed during the making of these bunnies. There are leftovers.)

As I have two of these fabulous goody bags, I've decided to give one of them away to one of you lucky lot. Well, actually, your children. What I want you to do is get baking or making cakes over Easter, then either blog about it, tweet a picture of it or just email pictures to me. You can make anything like you like, but the main rules are is it needs to be something sweet (so Krispie cakes are fine, but that won't win you brownie points) and it must be made by a child or children aged 10 years or under. They can have help from a grown-up, of course, but please ensure they have been involved in the making and/or decorating.

If you blog, please link back to your post with photographs in the comments below. If you tweet your link, feel free to add the hashtag #kidseasterbaking and mention me (@kateab) when you tweet it so I can see it.

If you don't have a blog, don't worry, you can still take part. Either tweet your picture, adding #kidseasterbaking to your tweet, and mention me (@kateab) when you do so that I can see it. Or you can just take a picture and email it to me at kateab65 [at] gmail.com. Don't forget to tell me the name of your creation, and the name and age of your child(ren). Leave a comment to remind me you tweeted or emailed so I don't miss any entries.

Entries will close at noon on 1st May so you have all of Easter week and Royal Wedding to make, bake, photograph, blog, tweet, email etc.

I will choose the best entry along with Monkey and Missy Woo. I'm the easiest to please here - to give you an idea, Monkey likes football and riding on his bike and his favourite colours are blue, red and Ben 10 green whilst Missy Woo likes princesses and colouring in and her favourite colours are pink and purple. (Gender stereotyping? I swear I tried not to!) We'll be looking for creative, colourful (and yummy!) entries.

The winner will receive the Kellogg's goody bag. The winner will be contacted by me and asked to provide a UK postal address (sorry, I cannot send this prize outside the UK). The prize will be sent via Royal Mail Special Delivery so you will need to ensure that someone is available to sign for the parcel, otherwise you'll have an annoying trip to the delivery office with photo ID to claim it.

My decision is final on all matters. Just because I enjoy the power, bwahaha. Happy baking... and good luck!

What do your kids eat for breakfast?

Do you insist on only healthy options? Or do you take the view that anything is better than nothing? Do yours even HAVE breakfast?

I know, that last question sounds shocking but I went to a event called Snap, Crackle and Blog at Kellogg's UK headquarters last Friday, and they revealed that 1 in 6 children do not eat breakfast, 1.7 million of which are children under 6. I think that last statistic shocked me most - babies and toddlers, with tiny tummies and who need to have food regularly, going without breakfast. That's awful - I can't believe all of those 1.7 million children don't want to eat in the mornings. On top of that, school children spend £646 MILLION pounds on the way to school buying snacks and drinks. That's over £3.5 million every school day.

Kellogg's are obviously the market leader in the UK breakfast cereal market. Their market share is way ahead of their nearest competitor - something like 40% with the next biggest around the 15% mark. Obviously, it is in their interest to tell a group of mum bloggers that statistic, because maybe our blogs about the event will mention it and maybe more people will buy cereals to eat breakfast. But is that so bad?

We all know that breakfast is a positive thing. It helps us to function better throughout the day. Getting a child to eat breakfast is a habit we want them to have for life. But many of the breakfast cereals on the market have what people perceive to be large amounts of sugar in them - think Coco Pops - and consider that to be bad. When we were there, and we were discussing this with one of the Kellogg's dietitians, I remembered a programme I watched a couple of years ago made by Professor Lesley Regan looking at children's products and part of which investigated sugary cereals. Lo and behold, I have managed to find a video of that programme for you to watch here (and funnily enough, Kellogg's are featured). It also features one of my favourite bits of trivia from last Friday - that most people who consume Frosties are actually young men, rather than small children. Brilliant.



So, maybe we all need to relax about things like that - they get so many other things from it. For instance, cereals are now the leading dietary source of iron for most children. Speaking for myself, I am happier if Monkey and Missy Woo have the healthiest options for breakfast but occasionally, they have Chocolate Weetabix, and sometimes for a special treat, I buy them chocolate spread for special breakfasts. But when it's run out, I don't automatically replace those things and they are happy enough having less sugary cereals like Rice Krispies. Missy Woo is currently having a big porridge phase and will devour bowls of it with only a few raisins added to provide sweetness. I'm happy with that balance - they understand that some things are treats and not to be eaten every day. Were I to have a really finicky child and a sugary cereal was the one thing they would eat for breakfast, I'd give it to them. So shoot me.

Still, Kellogg's say they are looking to reduce the sugar content of some of their sweeter cereals. That has to be a gradual thing because tastes change slowly, although they can be changed. The same applies to cereals. There will come a point where they can't reduce it any further because we just won't eat it. I'm thinking of some reduced salt and sugar baked beans that taste so bland, I want to add salt so I don't buy them.

Beyond the serious side of nutritional messages, it was a great event and I met some lovely bloggers for the first time, and some others for the second or third time. Kellogg's had us "making" our own cereal - and even designing our own cereal packet. I use the term designing loosely as I am so not crafty, it's embarrassing. Still, I think I did OK - and the cereal is actually quite edible. Here's mine, along with a few things that Kellogg's gave us to take away.

And yes, that is my face on a Cornflakes packet! If you saw my Silent Sunday post this week, hopefully all is now explained - they took photos of all of us at the start and then printed them on either a packet of Cornflakes or Rice Krispies for us to take away. Incidentally, did you know that the cockerel on the packet is called Cornelius? (Geddit?) I didn't!

Because I can't fit them all in, I've put pictures from the morning into a slideshow for you to peruse at your leisure.



Apart from coming away with arms laden with stuff, the one thing that stuck with me is this: children need breakfast. And as things go, cereal ain't necessarily that bad an option. If your child will only eat the sugariest thing on the supermarket shelf, let them have it. In the grand scheme of things, it's no biggie. If that's OK by Professor Regan, then it's OK by me.

Silent Sunday - Enough to put you off your cornflakes