Little Explorers: Spewing Pumpkins!

Here’s a pretty gross pumpkin with a gory twist that you can make for next to nothing. You don’t have to spirit away all your savings on the Halloween extras this time of year and we firmly believe that you shouldn’t have to pay over the odds to entertain your children!

Biggest Explorer (Dad!) carved our pumpkin into a Jack O’Lantern in the traditional way, but our Jack wasn’t looking scary enough. So we broke out the bicarbonate of soda and went a little crazy with cocoa powder and food colouring. Our pumpkin needed fake blood and to be frothing at the mouth to really terrify the other ghouls!

To make fake blood you will need:

• Sugar syrup
• Cornflour
• Cocoa powder
• Red food colouring

And for the spew of bubbles you will need:

• Bicarbonate powder of soda
• Vinegar

For the blood we mixed 2/3 cup of sugar syrup with about ten tablespoons of cornflour and one tablespoon of cocoa powder. We then heated it for a minute in the microwave. The Little Explorers enjoyed counting in the ingredients and whisking it up to a smooth consistency before squeezing in food colouring and mixing until it was a gooey vibrant red.

Needless to say, Jack was carried outside for his liberal covering of fake blood which the Little Explorers could have painted with for hours. All over the table. And the fence. And each other! Luckily, it all washed off, although food dye can stain so beware! Their bathwater certainly turned a very rich shade of brown later.

Next came the pseudo-science. It was fun not to tell the Little Explorers what was going to happen. We counted in six tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda, then asked the children to slowly pour in white vinegar and stand back! A wave of bubbles fizzed and poured and popped out of Jack’s gaping mouth, thrilling the Little Explorers.

Our Little Explorers wanted to repeat the experiment over and over and over… it really was the Halloween gift that kept on giving!

Expert Explorers: Did you know pumpkins grow all around the world apart from Antarctica - the only place on earth they can’t be cultivated. Most are produced in the USA and Canada. Jack O’Lanterns were traditionally carved in turnips in Scotland and Ireland until North American immigrants introduced the far easier to carve pumpkin. The biggest known pumpkin weighed more than 1,000 kilos – more than a small car!