Chocolate Balls

18 April 2007

Ingredients used per child:

10 Biscuits

1 ½ tbsp Sweetened Condensed Milk

Crushed chocolate (Smarties and Flake)

1 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1tbsp coconut powder

Method:

Crush the biscuits until very fine. Combine on a plate the crushed biscuits, the cocoa powder and the crushed chocolate. Then slowly stir in the sweetened condensed milk into the mixture to form dough. (If the balls are not holding shape then you may have used too much sweetened condensed milk.) Shape the mixture into balls. When the ball is finished, whoever may want to can roll it in coconut powder for added taste.

Result:

The children enjoy cooking and since this involved sweets they were even more enthusiastic to begin the task. This recipe was done with the children before so the older children knew what ingredients we would be using and the way it had to be done. Still the group leader explained every step sequentially. Since crushing the biscuits can be a bit tedious, it is important to engage the children in conversation, giving them hints and making them guess the ingredients that are to come. It may be useful also in providing information of other ingredients that they like which could be included in other similar sessions. When giving out the ingredients, one should be careful as some children were asking for more ingredients and some children wound up getting twice the amount of ingredients, whilst some others didn’t have enough. This happened because more than one volunteer was giving out the ingredients, causing confusion as to who was given the ingredients. Some children, especially the younger ones, needed more help from volunteers in making the dough mixture and shaping the balls. This also meant that there were a number of children with nothing to do until the rest finished.

Improvements:

§ Other types of chocolate could be used instead of smarties for variety and although they were prepared before the session, they are still difficult to crush manually.

§ When shaped into balls they could be rolled into desiccated coconut, sprinkles, cocoa powder or confectioner’s sugar. Originally, we had planned to roll the balls in coconut but we didn’t have enough time to do so with the younger children because some children needed more help to form the balls.

§ Where possible, make sure there are enough volunteers proportionally to the number of children

§ We have to be careful when giving out ingredients. Only one volunteer should give ingredients to avoid giving more to one child or accidentally forgetting a child.