Making ‘Tin Cakes’: Avoiding Corona Boredom
You know that time of the day when your children announce that they are hungry! Well, this is an activity that takes about 30 minutes, and provides them a little snack- as well as keeping them engaged!
It’s a thing that many Scouts may recall- and it’s something that I’ve done with groups on school grounds where we can’t have a big fire, unlike in the forest. In essence, it’s a pancake, done on top of an empty tin! Hence the name- a Tin Cake…
What you’ll need:
- A tin… (ideally with a rim so that the pancake batter doesn’t drip off…)
- A candle (a tea light works well with a short tuna tin, or if using a bigger soup tin then a taller candle will be needed)
- A nail and hammer (to punch air holes in the tin [you can use a drill for this if you want!])
- Some cooking oil
- Pancake batter
The process:
- With the hammer and nails- punch a series of holes in the tin (you’ll need more than you think!)
- Light the candle and pop the tin over it- best to spend a bit of time making sure the candle stays lit at this point! If it goes out- then it’s likely you will need more holes in the tin to let more oxygen in
- Sprinkle a few drips of oil onto top of the heating tin- make sure it’s spread across the entire top
- Spoon on some pancake batter- ideally making sure it doesn’t touch the rim (a thicker batter helps here)
- Wait for the top of the pancake to start to cook (it’ll change colour)- you might have to move the tin so that the heat of the candle cooks the entire surface of the tin cake!
- Using a knife, gently lift the tin cake (it is likely to stick in places as the tin is not non-stick)
- Flip it over a cook the other side
- Pop it on a plate- with your ideal topping and tuck in!
Here’s a quick video of when we did it the other day. Poppy said: “it was good- because we got to eat them at the end”. With Emma adding: “I learnt that candles use oxygen- and that tin cakes are yummy”.
Clearly- we’re using flame here- so this needs to be done with parental supervision!
Clearly these are testing times. We’re experiencing something that will be talked about for hundreds of years to come. We are consciously socially distancing- and this, as well as the other ideas we are sharing are ways of doing this, but keeping positive, as well as getting outside and away from screens.
We’d love to see your photos of doing this- share them with us by tagging us on Facebook- @Rewilding Adventure, or on Instagram- rewilding_adventure_uk . You can sign-up to our mailing list here to see what we have coming up. This is also something you could write about in your Spring Journal that we made the other day!
Have a great day, stay healthy, wash your hands properly and please, please stay home and maintain your social distance.
Morgan
