Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I’m going to run some baking sessions at my daughters pre-school and was thinking of including one for the kids to to make sugar-paste models. Needs to be super easy, quick and without sharp knives. My thoughts were hedgehog, duckling, bumblebee…any suggestions?

How about caterpillar. snake, dinosaur (easier than you might think), mouse, cat, teddy, sheep/lamb, piggy, penguin. Non of these need sharp implements to cut with but might need plastic modelling tools to for texturing fur. I thought perhaps you might be interested in this too http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8263605_make-play-dough-flour-sugar.html, would work out cheaper than sugar paste?

Hi SJD

I do cupcake parties for children- part of my tool kit for them has a paintbrush, plastic knife and fork and a straw ( one end cut to make a half moon), a plastic tea strainer and a cocktail stick – would omit this for pre schoolers and replace with say a lolly pop stick.

You can replace and find alternatives for most of our tools that will work well for the youngsters. Hope it has given you a few ideas

good luck
Sharon

Thanks everyone. I tested out the hedgehog, duck and bumblebee on my four year old (though she has played around with the icing stuff before) and they came out great. Her duck was better than mine!! Hardest for her was the hedgehog based on the way to hold the scissors, but we used her scissors and in the end it came out fine. Am definitely going to try the others with her too. Thanks all!