"Mum I would like something sweet" – my daughter moans. The school year is over and suddenly she doesn't have anything to do. There are no lessons, set books, pop quizzes or tests. The yearly project, which plagued us for ten months, is in the past already. In a word – boredom. "Do it yourself" – I snap at her, ironing shirts. I hate ironing and the increasing pile of clean washing sends me into a bad mood. "What do you mean 'myself'???"
In this way mini pouches from French pastry with fruit were made. Swift, easy and surprisingly tasty. You also may prepare them when guests "cheer you up" with a surprise visit. They are great both hot from the oven and cooled down. You need a couple of ingredients and the honour of the housewife is rescued.

Ingredients:
1 pack of chilled French pastry
9 strawberries
18 bars of white chocolate
3 tablespoons of milk
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
caster sugar

A summer holiday weekend afternoon. A hammock or lawn chair, drowsy laziness and a good book. Moments like this are like gold dust. Some excellent tea and any light sweet desert would also go down well.

This crunchy, wafery tart with creamy crème and fruit is an excellent proposal for a summer dessert. Add to the crème some lemon zest and lemon juice or essence and your family will wonder what you have changed in the dessert to make it so great. Strawberries and blueberries have contrasting tastes and fresh leaves of peppermint complete the picture. If you are fed up with strawberries, use other types of fruit. Raspberries, which have started conquering the stalls, would be great.

Ingredients:
200g of blueberries
400g of strawberries
dough:
250g of flour
4 teaspoons of caster sugar
a pinch of salt
2 yolks
120g of butter

I spent one week in June just resting. Whoever devised the so-called 'green school' deserves an award. Five whole days of peace – my daughter was out – three days of absolute calm, because some brave nursery teachers took a group of five-year-olds out for green nursery school. The only thing was, this week was strangely short. At the beginning there was Monday and moments later it was Friday. It was a suspicious time warp and I couldn't do anything. My daughter stood on the doorstep and said "Mum, there is a homelike aroma."

Today I would like to share with you a recipe for this homelike aroma. Its secret is the easiest homemade fruitcake that I know. You can use any type of fruit. Most often I make it with plums, but it is also excellent with cherries. Today I chose wild cherries. This cake is fluffy, moist, not too sweet and smells delicious.

Ingredients:
250g of flour
250g of butter
250g of sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
4 eggs

Panna cotta is one of the most famous and classical desserts. It comes from north Italy. It is prepared with cream heated with gelatine and other extra ingredients and served with fruit coulis. Even beginner chefs could handle this dessert. Maybe you will persuade your children to make it on their own?

For this dessert you may use seasonal fruits. Right now the best are strawberries but soon, you will be able to use raspberries, blueberries or cherries. Make a thick coulis from some of them and use it for decoration.

Ingredients:
250 ml of 30% sweet cream
250 ml of milk
80 g of sugar
10 g of gelatine
a couple of drops of vanilla essence
leaves of peppermint
0.3 kg of strawberries

Children in the kitchen make mess, mess and yet more mess. And it is their parents who have to clean it all up. When we let children into the kitchen, we might get something interesting on the plates apart from the mess. Every chef begins with boiling water for tea and with scrambled eggs.

Recently, it has been possible to find a lot of books with recipes for children and beautifully edited cookery books for children. My daughter has had one of them for a long time, and from time to time she reminds herself of it and devises cooking experiments. "Cecylka Knedelek, i.e cookery book for children" is an amazing book. On the one hand it is a very pleasant book with nice stories which you could read in bed. On the other hand it is a treasure trove of recipes imaginatively grouped in colourful chapters. In the yellow-orange parts you can find a recipe for pumpkin pikelet or orange cake without oranges, in the purple part you can find blueberry and blackberry ice cream, and in the green part there is pea soup and broad bean paste. There is also colourful food with fruit under a warm cover and vegetable soup.

Preparing some parts of the dishes requires parental attention, but other parts children can prepare themselves.

Cooking has many benefits for children. It is a crafty way of getting them to trying new flavours, get to know amazing ingredients and, leastways with some children, to clean up the kitchen. After the demands of cooking, young chefs will maybe appreciate our efforts a bit more and maybe they will be less fussy.

Today, using one of the "red recipes", my children prepared chocolate strawberries.