Switch Off Day

A wet and windy start to Switch Off Day at Holt V.C Primary had Helen and I setting up to cook with every pupil throughout the school.  It was the first outing for the Tinderbox tarp shelter and we only lost the tent pegs holding the front of the tarp up about five times (its amazing how far they can travel).  The aim of the day was to show how you would have to cook if you didn't have any electricity.  We did 9 sessions lasting for half an hour each with the pupils mixing up bannock bread dough which we then cooked on skillets over the campfire.  While we waited for the bannock to cook, the bag of story stones went round and each pupil pulled out one.  In groups they told the rest of us a story using the pictures on the pebbles as cues.  With the bannock we had hot chocolate before the pupils returned to the gloom of the classroom with no electricity.

Recipe for Bannock

• A cup of flour
• Teaspoon of baking powder
• Handful of mixed fruit or 2 tablespoons of runny honey and a teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of water
• Tablespoon of rapeseed oil

Mix all the ingredients together and the pat dough into a pattie about 1.5cm thick.  Shallow fry the dough turning after five minutes. Best eaten around a campfire!