Every other Monday

Every other Monday at the cafe we have a group of Year 7 children from the local secondary school. We have to find something to occupy them for 40 minutes, split into 3 groups, hands washed and aproned up. Today one group covered the lids of jars of jam with Christmas paper, another group worked on a poster listing all the different fruit and veg and, in the kitchen, I set the rest to make Welsh cakes using apple instead of currants which we don't have. Chopping the apples, rolling the dough, cutting out and cooking the cakes in a frying pan was enthusiastically tackled and we managed to produce enough for everyone to share, including the support workers, and for us 3 cafe volunteers to enjoy the remainder with coffee and relief after the kids had gone. It's quite a challenge to plan, organise and complete the activities in such a short time span.

Two weeks ago they made latkes and the time before that pizza.
(By the way, the school staff have no objection at all to my photographing the proceedings.)

Apple Welsh cakes

200g self-raising flour
100g butter
a pinch of salt
1tsp cinnamon
50g sugar
1 finely chopped apple
1 egg

Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the rest of the ingredients, mixing to form a stiff dough.
Roll out fairly thinly (about 1/2cm) cut out and cook on a hot griddle, turning once.
Once cooked, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

(We had no eggs so I used a little milk instead.)