My children seem to be magnets for mud and dirt and grime and I seem to spend my day telling whichever child or children I am with to go and wash their hands or face. This request is generally met with furious indignation and the retort that they are clean and how unfair mummy is.
When Atticus’s nursery brought my attention to the fact that Friday 29 June is International Mud Day I was really happy. In our house, playing in the mud equates to the boys in the unassigned flower beds digging for treasure and worms and Ophelia trying to climb undetected closer to the raspberry canes (regardless of season) to steal the fruit! I have three little explorers set on conquering my garden, having a good time in nature and with each other so it is a win-win in my book.
My original plan to mark this muddy occasion, had been to 
make a deliciously decadent dark chocolate torte and let the children decorate it. Then I figured that the kids would probably prefer this recipe as it involves biscuit crushing and super speedy whisking Angel Delight with the rotary whisk and sweetie worms, so from their perspective what’s not to love?! This recipe is definitely more child-friendly and less of a chance of me having to exert super-human will power to prevent myself from eating a whole chocolate torte!
I have been making this recipe since Seb, now 5, was about 18 months. This 
was the first time that Ophelia had a chance to try out the rotary whisk. I have to admit she was a bit puzzled and needed help, but there were shrieks of delight coming from both her and Atticus as she started learning how to operate it. We also found that this recipe gave Atticus the opportunity to use fun adjectives to describe the mixture, words used include: frothy as well as bubbly and fluffy. He also said; “bash the biscuit to smithereens” as he was crushing the biscuit.
Ingredients
Makes 4 puddings or 3 big ones. We serve these in small glasses so the kids can see the layers.
- 4 Bourbon biscuits (essentially 1 per pudding)
- 1 pack of chocolate Angel Delight
- 300ml cold milk
- The Natural Confectionary Company Jelly Snakes (we called them worms though!)
Method
Put the Angel Delight powder into a medium-sized bowl and add the milk. Whisk and mix around until the powder has dissolved in the milk and it is all frothy like a thick milkshake. Place the bowl in the fridge until it is next needed.
- Put the Bourbon biscuits into a ziplock bag and bash and crush them with a rolling pin or wooden spoon until they are fine crumbs. It is ok to have some bigger bits too, but you may struggle to convince your child to stop crushing them!
- Put a tablespoon of the crushed biscuits into each glass.
Take the Angel delight out of the fridge and divide it equally 
between the glasses. With my children, this involved many spillages and requests to lick the spoon. They were allowed to do the latter once we had finished.- Divide the remaining Bourbon biscuits between the glasses and decorate them with the worms.
- Place in the fridge until ready to eat.
Needless to say, these puddings were really welcome after a long day; nice and cold straight from the fridge in this exceptionally warm weather we have been experiencing. I think the glasses were cleared in record time for a pudding! I hope your little explorers have as much fun with this recipe as mine do.
