Milkmaid's Butter-Making
Making butter by hand is a good reminder of how people used to do things in times past but it’s a bit of slog – the jam-jar method can take up to 30 minutes’ hard shaking. It’s fun if you make it together, with each family member taking turns to shake and find their own technique. Alternatively, it takes just five minutes in a hand mixer or food processor.
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Buttermilk Cake
Use bought or home-produced buttermilk in this deliciously moist no-frills mix – a big hit with children who like slabs of plain cake for tea.
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Maypole Cake
This is a basic Victoria sponge decorated with flowers and ribbons to celebrate the arrival of summer.
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Flowers to Eat
You can eat the petals of all of these flowers, but first make sure that they’re pesticide-free. Don't pick from roadside verges where they're likely to have picked up exhaust fumes.
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Mayday Madness
We're now into summer. It's official. The cow parsley's out, the hawthorn and blackthorn are blossoming, gardens and green places are boisterous with birds and bees. May the first was actually the start of this splendid new season, though blink and you may have missed it because nobody's celebrating May Day this year until the bank holiday weekend. And probably not much then, because the old May Day traditions are all dying out.
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May Day Jig
Open air dancing is a big May Day tradition, so this is a good opportunity to hold a knees-up and embarrass the kids with your Balloo bear wiggle.
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Merrie May Days
Some May Day traditions you might like to try out this year!
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Going A-Maying
The traditional name for collecting flowers and branches of hawthorn and blackthorn blossom to decorate the maypole. In the olden days, people used to go out the night before to collect huge piles of blossom before sunrise.
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Maypole Whirl
On May Day, invite a group of children round (the more the merrier), and ask them to do some maypole dancing.
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Make a Maypole
Younger kids especially love capering madly round the maypole. This one is easy to make and is sturdy enough for eight children to dance around.
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Junket
We're on a mission to bring back junket, a gentle milky pudding that was traditionally eaten on May Day. In Penzance, young people used to leave the inns on May Eve at midnight and tour local farmhouses to 'partake of junket, made of raw milk and rennet, sweetened with sugar, and a little cream added, followed by heavy cake and rum and milk.' It's a good, healthy, everyday family pud.
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Vanilla Ice-Cream with Orange Toffee and Cowslips
The first ice-cream of the year? No, well, at least it's the first topped with home-made toffee and edible flowers from the garden.
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