Magic Faraway Tree Book Bento Lunch

In celebration of World Book Day, which takes place tomorrow, for the whole of this week I'm making book bento lunches for Small Child, based on some of his favourite books. Yesterday I shared a The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Bento, and today's lunch is based on The Magic Faraway Tree, another big favourite of his at the moment! As an avid reader myself, I take such joy in introducing my own favourite books from my childhood to my son, and seeing him love them so much too. I vividly remember reading The Faraway Tree when I was exactly his age, how I wished I could climb up that tree myself!

In this lunch Small Child had a Faraway Tree sandwich, filled with cream cheese and ham on seeded bread. To make the tree I used a large flower shaped cutter (the large cutter in this bento cutter set is of a similar size) to cut out the top of the tree. I cut a rough trunk shape from the end crust of the loaf, and shaped the top of it with the same cutter so that it would slot in nicely. I popped the sandwich on top of some raw baby leaf spinach, and decorated the tree with leaf bento picks and little people bento picks to represent some of the magical folk of the Faraway Tree. On the side I packed some raw sugar snap peas, a circle of raw yellow pepper decorated with edible marker pen to represent Moonface, some raisins topped with 3D flower bento picks, and some fruit 'toadstools', made from strawberries and halved grapes. This lunch was packed in our Yumbox Panino bento box.

Here's a quick tutorial for making the cute fruit toadstools. I think these would make gorgeous party food for a fairy party, woodland party or similar! They were very simple to make, all you need are some strawberries, grapes and cocktail sticks. I cut the cocktail sticks in half using sharp kitchen scissors, then cut the tops from the strawberries, a small slice from the top of each grape and popped them together on the cocktail stick, with a little of the stick poking out of the bottom. I did make sure I warned Small Child that there were sticks inside - for safety's sake these would probably be best for older children only!

I was really pleased that Small Child absolutely loved his Magic Faraway Tree lunch. Don't forget to come by tomorrow to see the next in our World Book Day book bento lunches!

Grace

Items used to make this lunch: