Monday 8 October 2012

How To Make a Mud Pie


Who does not remember making a mud pie back in the day?

I for one used to spend much of my time cooking up the biggest, muddiest mud pies; granted I also used to spend quite a lot of time trying to dig a hole in the back garden that would go right through the earth’s crust and reach Australia, after my Dad told me it was possible…Anyway, that is another story!

I would take mixing spoons from the kitchen and use them to stir together my latest creations. There is nothing quite as satisfying as stirring squelchy mud with your Mother’s baking spoon I can tell you!

*Disclaimer – I am not telling you to take your Mother’s baking spoon for mud pie baking!*

I am not talking about a luxurious Chocolate pudding with the added mud euphuism, nope. I am talking about mud. Real mud, the kind you take from the garden. Thick sludgy mud. Just any kind of mud I could get my hands on.

Everything I could possibly imagine went into these one of a kind pies and not the kind of things that you would really want to eat! Grass, leaves, twigs, stones, gravel, flowers, weeds, sometimes I would even decorate it with a live slug or snail! (No slugs or snails were hurt in the making of this mud pie!)

You can experiment with different types of mud, clay like mud always leaves you with a very impressive mud pie, and you can mix in colourful flowers to add dashes of colour to your otherwise monotone masterpiece.

By now you probably want to cook up a mud pie storm?

Remember though…
you must not eat your mud pie. It is purely for show purposes!

The Mud Pie Recipe

Ingredients
1 Cup of Sand or Gravel
2 Cups of Mud
1 ½ Cups of Water

What you will need
Responsible adult
Baking Spoon
Mixing Bowl
Baking Pan or similar
Flowers or other decorative materials

Method
Note: If you are going down the sand based mud pie route, I would recommend sand pitt sand if you have some lying around. If not you can always use gravel which will add a different texture to your pie, but that is what it is all about! Getting your little ones to explore different textures.

You will need 2 cups of mud freshly scooped from the garden, the more twigs and stones the better!


Mix 1 cup of sand and 1 cup of mud into your mixing bowl and stir them together. Once all of the mud clumps are gone you should be left with a thick mixture, enhanced by your twigs and stones.

Stir gently while adding in your 1 ½ cups of water. How much water you actually need will vary on what type of mud pie you are cooking up, and depends on whether you used sand or gravel for the basis of your pie.

Now you are ready to add your final cup of squidgy mud. Continue to stir your mixture all together until it is all clump free, now if you are wanting to add some colour to your mud pie, you can add the flowers or whatever else you were hoping to throw in for good measure. Once you have the desired look, pour your finished mixture into your baking pan.

Now add on any decoration that you want on your mud pie.


Depending on the season you may wish to add conkers or pine combs to your pie. If you want to get really creative you could crush up some egg shells and add in food colouring to give you some very bright colours, before sprinkling them on top.

With the final decorations in place, set your mud pie in direct sunlight to bake until it’s dry.

When it comes to mud pies you really can dream up anything you want and make it a reality. They are a fantastic way to entertain the kid’s and get them outside playing with what nature intended them too.

They will love getting their hands dirty and squidging their fingers in the squelchy mud. They will get filthy but they will love the experience, and you will too.

Mud pies are completely fat free and will be remembered for a life time.



5 comments:

  1. Haha this is a cute post- I used to make Mud pies all the time with my Grandma. x

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    1. I still love to make them now...Does it show? :-) x

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  2. I love the way you have written this post. I had quite forgotten mud pie making but yes I did the same, did you pick flowers and extract the juice too to make perfume? Thank you for sharing on Country Kids

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    1. Thank you! I think everyone has to make a mud pie at some point in their lives, and I look forward to making many more! On this occasion we didn't but thanks for the idea :-) xx

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  3. Fantastic, my children love making mud pies :-)

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