Under the Sea Themed Lunch

After my first fish shaped moulded egg didn't turn out too well (I used a medium sized egg which was too small) I wanted to try it again.  I was planning to make an 'under the sea' themed lunch anyway because I also wanted to make a clementine octopus (after getting the idea from this post by Eileen at Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys) so it seemed the ideal opportunity to give it another go.

In this lunch Small Child had a pile of oatcakes, buttered and sandwiched together in pairs.  I added a quick face to the top oatcake with edible marker pens, then arranged the oatcakes on top of some raw carrot strips cut with my julienne peeler to make a jellyfish.  You can't see it in this picture but I put a silicone divider underneath the oatcakes to prevent them from getting soggy from contact with the carrots. On the side Small Child had a mini cheddar Babybel cheese with a fish cut from the wax to decorate, a hardboiled egg shaped like a fish and a clementine octopus.  I also scattered a few sea creature shaped fruit jellies around the 'jellyfish', and added a frozen organic yoghurt tube to his lunch bag.

Here's a close-up of the octopus.  To make him I carved 'legs' into the skin of the clementine, then carefully peeled them away from the 'body'.  I added eyes to the skin with a biro (no need to use food safe markers as the skin gets discarded) and finished him off with a little hat pick.  He made Small Child laugh, a lot!

Here's a close-up of the egg too; as you can see it turned out pretty well.  When making moulded eggs for a lunchbox I usually make them the night before and pop them in the fridge (still in the mould) to really set over night. I had forgotten to make it in advance for this lunch though, so as we were short of time I popped the egg (in the mould) into the freezer to chill for 20 minutes before we left for school.  It worked well; the egg was nicely chilled by the time we were ready to leave.

This lunch was a lot of fun to make, and was a big hit with Small Child!

Grace