Gross Out!
By Rachel Davies
I’m privileged to have a few nieces and nephews to hang out with, but beyond that I don’t get to spend that much time with children, so I hoped that the group I was teaching at this year’s Gefiltefest would respond well to my class on ‘Gross Out – disgusting dishes and revolting recipes!’.
I was, however, pretty sure that I’d enjoy the class. I had a bag of corn chips to dye green and pretend they were mouldy, and plenty of creepy crawlies up my sleeve, not literally of course, but I wasn’t quite sure how the children, aged 6-10, would respond.
We went around the room, and everyone said their name, and the most disgusting thing they could imagine that they could eat. I wanted to set the tone, and the children didn’t disappoint. ‘Spiders’ one of them said, which was good as I had a spider cupcake ready and waiting to be demonstrated. ‘A fingertip’ another offered, and she went on to create an amazing fingertip on top of her cupcake, complete with a spray of crimson blood dripping from the severed finger.
A girl introduced herself, and said that she’d once eaten a sandwich filled with worms. She added that she actually hadn’t, but was just pretending, and I appreciated the effort. This was definitely going in the direction I’d hoped!
We then went on to make spiders, worms, snakes, and the children ran away with the theme, making bumble bees, centipedes, monsters, all artistically made with care, thought, and a bit of wonderful grossness. Their concentration was so impressive, and the results were a multi-coloured catalogue of creepy crawlies with some interpretation thrown in.
So I would highly recommend trying this as home. We used sugarpaste, which can be bought online in a large selection of colours, and stuck them onto cupcakes. If you have children in need of entertaining during half term, pick a theme, buy some sweets to add as props, and let them run with it. I’d love to see the results.
You can buy sugarpaste and other cake decorating equipment at www.sugarshack.co.uk.
