And a set of such “classics” that we’ve recently enjoyed is the triumphant trio of books by Tomi Ungerer about a family of pigs, the Mellops, who get up to all sorts of adventures and who have a penchant for cream cakes (exactly the sort of family I try to cultivate around me!).

Recently republished, 50+ years after they originally entertained children, I had not previously heard of them, but they’ve now become established favourites in our home, definitely part of our personal library of books we’ll return to again and again.

You do not need to have read any of them to enjoy the other books – each stands on its own as a delightful slice of life from Mr and Mrs Mellops and their four sons, Casimir, Isidor, Felix and Ferdinand.

In the story set at Christmas, Christmas Eve at the Mellops’, the boys each separately wish to surprise their father and so cut down a Christmas tree in the forest. But four Christmas trees are too many for any family and thus the boys try to find homes for their trees. It seems that no-one needs them, until at last they find a family down on its luck and the boys all pull together to fill that family’s home full of Christmas cheer. The high moral tone of the book is tempered with plenty of humour, so rather than coming across as preachy, it reads as just a jolly nice story about what Christmas really ought to be about – kindness and generosity (and the discovery of a universal truth: “there is no such thing as too many Christmas trees!“)

Another story, The Mellops Strike Oil, beings when one summer picnic the Mellops notice that the stream’s water tastes of oil. Having done their research on where oil is generally found, they return to their picnic spot and set about drilling for liquid gold. They do strike lucky, but a smouldering cigar thrown from a passing car results in fiery disaster and so the family return home, perhaps beaten, but definitely not downhearted. With lovely understatement, “Oil drilling is quite exciting,” Father sighed. “But from now on, let’s leave it to the professionals.” The idea that the journey, the adventure, not the final destination or the end result is what really matters is also a theme in The Mellops Go Diving For Treasure.

This third caper involves searching for treasure in an underwater shipwreck, meeting merpigs and a dangerous octopus along the way. After initial failure to find the gold, they do then discover a full treasure chest. But are the jewels really worth more than friendship and the exciting experiences they’ve shared along the way? Once again, what could be rather worthy moral overtones are soften by light-hearted and warm humour, making the message all the more believable and meaningful.

The stories are each a lot of fun – they pack a punch and make you smile. The illustrations are pared down, with minimal use of colour and sparing use of detail – which makes them seem suprisingly fresh and modern.

Ultimately these stories are about a family with big hearts. They live life to the full, they live hopefully and adventurously, and know how to dust themselves down and appreciate what they do have even when things do not go quite according to plan. It’s definitely a modus operandi I’d like to adopt for my family! Here’s hoping that Phaidon will also re-issue the two remaining Mellops’ stories, The Mellops Go Spelunking and The Mellops go Flying.

One more reason why we aspire to be like the Mellops is that each story ends with the happy Mellops family sitting down to enjoy cream cakes together, and of course this idea appealed to M, J and me. So armed with a can of squirty cream each, plenty of paper cake cases and a tempting array of sprinkles, we set about spending an afternoon creating our own cream cakes.

This was an edible twist on the sensory play with shaving foam idea that I’ve seen all over the web but my kids haven’t enjoyed the times I’ve tried because the scent of the shaving foam has been too strong.

For J’s little hands it was rather hard work pressing the can hard enough for the cream to squirt out, but she found it easy enough to enjoy the sprinkles!

An indulgent, wickedly enjoyable afternoon of playing and making and eating was had by all

Whilst we made our cream cakes and played patisseries we listened to:

Other fun activities you could try along side these lovely stories from Tomi Ungerer include:

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had playing with your food? (By the way, I see a theme developing this week on the blog – Monday saw the edible books, today it’s cream cakes, and on Friday I hope to be back with a post featuring Maltesers…)

Disclosure: I received my copies of these books from the publisher. This review, however, remains my own and honest opinion.

Last week I listened to one particularly interesting programme on the theme of reading mindfully. Part of Radio 4′s book of the week, Stop What You’re Doing and Read This, Tim Parks explored the idea of really attending to what we read. It certainly inspired me to be a little more thoughtful about what and how I read.

But, do you know what? Sometimes I don’t want to take time, and savour things. Sometimes I just want to gobble up a book. I want to lick my lips and wolf it down.

Well, here are the books we have literally been munching on the last few days:

We made our mini edible books from white chocolate and fruit leathers.

We melted a chunk of white chocolate just a little by placing it for a few seconds on a hot frying pan.

We then squidged it down on the fruit leather.

We then melted the other side of the chocolate a little.

Finally we folder over the fruit leather and pressed down hard. We trimmed the leather and then used a knife to tidy up the oozing chocolate, just spreading it out a bit.

We used just the tiniest bit of icing to give our books titles.

Once complete I left them in the fridge for an hour or so to harden up. When we came to eat them, they were actually yummy enough to make again!

I wish I could claim this idea as a Playing by the book original, but actually my inspiration came from Hungry Happenings. although she uses a different method to make hers.

We’re now experimenting with marzipan and chocolate books, and other tomes made out of kendal mint cake and chocolate… (if you’ve any further ideas for what to use, do let me know!)

For more edible books (make sure you’re not hungry when you follow the link!) click here: it turns out that there’s quite a worldwide movement of Edible Book Festivals, and even an “official” Edible Book Day – April 1. I quite fancy hosting a virtual Edible Book Festival – would you be up for it?

If eating a whole book would be too much for you then how about a poem, a word or even a just a letter or two? Do take a look at this gorgeous post from Resistance is Fertile. It ends with a home made out of poetry…

Photo: Jemimus

For just a letter or two you can salivate over Typolade – a German company that makes chocolates in the shape of printers’ alphabetic blocks. They’re a little like mini versions of the Dutch chocolate letters you get for Sinterklaas.

So, what do you say? Are you up for joining in a virtual Edible Book Festival? We all make something to eat on a bookish theme and then I’ll have a gallery of your images up here and link to your posts about what/why and how you created your Edible Book?

Over the winter holidays we tried out two new cookery books, Whoopie Pie Fun by Claire Ptak, and Around the World with Little Kitchen by Sabrina Parrini.

Whoopie pies were a new gastronomic experience for our family. Essentially they are cake sandwiches; cake batter is cooked like biscuits ie as dollops on a tray rather than in tins, and when cooked these cake-biscuits are sandwiched together with an icing or other filling. The kids’ drooled over the photos in Claire Ptak’s book – everything looked delicious to them and they were so happy when I said we could make whatever they fancied.

As you can see, they had lots of fun baking!

And they loved the whoopie pies we ended up with SO much that I didn’t even get the chance to take a photo… they were gone and gobbled before I knew it!

So Whoopie Pie Fun by Claire Ptak definitely got the thumbs up from the kids. But as a Mum… I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the actual book. Although marketed as a children’s book, the format and presentation doesn’t suggest the book was put together especially with kids in mind. To me it looked just like an adult’s cookery book. For example, there were no explanations of cookery terms (which might be useful for a child reading the book themselves), and no images of kids themselves doing baking (or even eating!).

As a whoopie pie newbie the book didn’t answer a couple of questions I would have liked to know the answer to – for example, how well do whoopie pies freeze (the recipes are for large quantities – great if you have a school fair, but way more that we needed in one batch), or what (if anything) can be substituted for buttermilk (an ingredient needed in lots of recipes, and which isn’t stocked in many small UK supermarkets)? [Sure, I can find out the answers by Googling, but it would have been nice to have the information in the book itself].

For an example of a fabulous looking cookbook where kids really are… well, I was going to write “at the heart of the recipes”, but that sounds like they are ingredients, which is rather too Hansel-and-Gretel-esque for this post… so rather, for a cookbook well thought-out and appealingly presented for children to use themselves I can definitely recommend Around the World with Little Kitchen by Sabrina Parrini.

Over Christmas M tried out several recipes from this book…

…and all of them were really very delicious!

With J playing with her Dad, I was able to enable M to try out all sorts of new skills in the kitchen from including properly sharp knives, turning the gas on, and cooking meat for the first time. It was really a great experience for both of us.

Although clearly aimed at kids, the book doesn’t look childish, but rather professional, with glossy photos and smart binding. Inside it’s got lots of features which are particularly helpful for young chefs:

M really liked the fact that the recipes came from different countries around the world (indicated by the country’s flag next to any given recipe), and it certainly made for a more varied list of recipes than you often find in kids’ cookery books. 23 out of 36 recipes were for savoury dishes; I was pleased to see so many as often kids’ cookbook authors focus on sweet (and not so healthy) food.

This is a great kids’ cookery book, especially for slightly older aspiring cooks eg 8-14. If I were to find fault, however, it would be in its lack of “translation” from the original Australian English (this book was first published in Australia, where Sabrina Parrini established the country’s first organic cookery school). Thus recipes may call for eggplants (rather than aubergines), rice cookers (which may well be more common in Australia where Japanese cuisine is widely found), almond meal (rather than ground almonds), and measurements are often made in “cups” (Australian cups, no less, which are not the same as either US cups and certainly not UK mugs!). Whilst all these little problems can be over come (indeed a note is made early on in the book about Australian cup equivalents in other measuring systems), it would have been relatively easy, and yet very helpful to “translate” these little vocabulary items, especially given the attention to detail so obviously lavishly shown elsewhere in the book.

Annoyingly, neither book contains an index – alas all too common in cookery books. Cookery book editors please note: an index is indispensable if you’ve not marked the page your recipe is on, or have an ingredient you want to find a recipe for. We don’t all choose recipes simply by browsing and looking at photos!

Whilst we baked and cooked we listened to:

What children’s cookery books do you use? What do you look for in a brilliant children’s cookery book?

If you haven’t yet left a comment on on my New Year’s Post, please do come and leave a comment!

Disclosure: I received my copy of these books from the publisher. This review, however, remains my own and honest opinion.