Food
Luschka 79

Yesterday I shared a Banana muffin recipe from the Little Cooks Collection and today I have the opportunity to share more about it with  my readers, and offer one of you the opportunity to win a subscription of your own!

The Little Cooks Collection is based on Dora the Explorer. While Ameli has never seen an episode of the TV Show, she has thoroughly enjoyed the magazine.

You can see for yourself what each magazine holds, but I’ll walk you through it anyway.

Each copy comes with a freebie, and in the end you’ll have this whole collection of usable kitchen goodies – I say usable as they’re not just toys, they can actually be used in real cooking. dora1

The mag starts with fun activities around what you’re cooking with, so in the first issue you bake Banana muffins and have a page of ‘circle the banana’, colour this and get your goodies ready activities.

Next up you have the recipe pages. Nicely illustrated, and easy to follow, the recipe – at least in the first issue – is really simple and quick to do, with minimal clean-up. (Often children’s recipes seem to require masses of bowls and mixing and preparation – this didn’t at all!)

dora2

While your muffins are baking in the oven, there are plenty activity pages for you and your child to do together. There are fun facts, more snack ideas – banana ice cream, simple smoothie, banana breakfast and a banana lolly-  drawing activities, cutting and sticking activities and once you’ve had enough of all that, you can eat your muffins and read the story together.

Overall there’s a good few hours of activity in each book and you can add to and take away from it as you wish.

I didn’t really expect much from the goodies that come along with the magazine, but have been really impressed. The plate is dishwasher safe (I think, since it survived the dishwasher!) and the silicone cups are totally fabulous. They fit in our muffin pans, although that’s not essential – the hold themselves up, as compared to the paper cups that tend to flop about a bit. Once out the oven they cool pretty quickly, and they they peel off the muffins without taking chunks of muffin with it. The result is a beautifully smooth finish on your banana muffins, without fishing bits of paper out your mouth either! The silicone cases have really impressed me so much, I’m on the lookout for these in the shops so we can buy another set (the first book only costs 99p).

For subscription information, check out the website. (Issue 1 is 99p, Issue 2 is £2.99 and thereafter they’re £4.99 every two weeks.) You can pick these up at your local supermarkets and so on, but if you subscribe you also get a whole bunch of free goodies.

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Categories: Competitions Food Kids in the Kitchen Products Reviews

Author: Luschka

79 Comments

Little Cooks – Dora The Explorer Review And Competition

  12. I like the Cooks Timer, im really bad at putting things in the oven adn forgetting about them

  15. I would most like the apron & hat set for my little girl lexi 🙂 She LOVES Dora and would look so cute in it 🙂 Fingers crossed 🙂

  21. Thecooking timer would be great

    Have lied your facebook page to, juanita polly powers xxx

  24. The ‘on the go bag’. My 2 year old loves Dora and this would be perfect for her to take her lunch to nannans in, while mummy goes to work. :o]

  26. my favourite is the hat and apron set. My daughter would look soooo cute in it. I have also liked on facebook xxx

  28. I would like the dora cooler bag, perfect for on-the-go lunches or to use when having picnics in the park.

  35. I would love the magazine box, so I could keep them all tidy and in order. My daughter would love the apron and hat set, so she would look the part.

  51. What a lovely collection but our favourite has to be the very cute and stylish cooks apron and hat set my little girl loves it and would look so sweet in it what a great prize by the way best of luck eveyone 🙂

  52. the on the go bag my daughter would love for our picnic out in the summer 🙂 she loves dora and we love cooking its so fun x

  57. My 5 year old son loves baking and he keeps wanting me to buy the Dora magazines every time he sees them in store. He would love the cup cake cases the best because he is a cup cake king and makes the best I’ve ever tasted.

    Following on twitter @IckiePooh
    Liked on facebook

  58. The apron and hat set, my daughter loves to be a chef but doesn’t have an apron or hat yet so would be over the moon with this x

  59. It has to be the hat and apron for my grandaughter Katie. She is a masterchef in the making and these woudl really make her look and feel the part

  61. My daughter Abbie’s favourite thing would undoubtedly be the apron and hat set….she loves cooking and baking and would really look the part in this gorgeous little outfit 🙂 x

  64. My youngest daughter would love the Apron and Hat Set!!!! The set would help keep her clothes clean when we bake lol!

  69. I like the tidy box because I’m a nerd that way! I can’t wait to cook w my pie! (he is an avid spectator from my sling at the mo)

  75. Awwww these are amazing!! The best freebie with this subscription would be the bowls/dishes. Character based dishes always get my LO into his meals and if we make them ourselves too that would be a double bonus!

  76. I honestly wouldn’t bother trying to win a subscription – they can’t fulfil the ones they already have.

    I bought my daughter Issue 1 at Tescos and she loved it – we had great fun making the banana muffins and eating them. Feeling excited about this new magazine I thought I would subscribe so my daughter could be sure she got the issues before they were out in the shops and so she would get the array of free gifts promised.

On February 9th Eaglemoss confirmed my subscription of £9.98 every 28 days. About 2 weeks later Issue 1 turned up – the issue we already had but we had asked to start at Issue 1 so we would have 2 Dora plates and more muffin cases. The free Tidy Box however didn’t arrive. 

Since then we have walked past issue 2 and issue 3 in Tesco. My very bright 4 year old has asked why heres haven’t come through the post and can we buy them at Tesco. Her friends have all made their new recipes, got their new free mixing bowl etc. But my daughter hasn’t because we made the mistake of subscribing thinking this would get us a better deal! 

So today I called eaglemoss to be told the tidy box comes with your second shipment. I explained on the email infront of me it says “Tidy Box with first shipment”. What did they say? “Well it should say second shipment”.

So I say, well I’m still waiting for issue 2 and 3 which are out in the shops. They say – “we ask you to wait up to 21 days for those”.
I say, “21 days from setting up the subscription was March 1st”. 
They say, ‘we’ve dispatched them but we ask you to allow 21 days. We’re playing catch up as we had so many orders.”.
I explain very nicely that while an adult might be happy to wait 21 days for something they already paid for, which is already available in the shops because they have a backlog, they cannot expect a 4 year old to apply logic.
They ask me to allow 21 days!

And so we go round in circles.

I am very, very unhappy about this. I subscribe to several magazines and always get them before they are in the shops so why should my 4 year old have to wait 21 days after everyone else has their issue of Dora Little Cooks? The customer service I got is zero. So before I cancel my subscription I thought I’d get views on here.

I wondered if anyone else was having this problem and how other parents feel about this? It’s like they think they can get away with it because a 4 year old can’t complain but this mummy can!

    Seeing my comments on another mums forum, Eaglemoss’s PR company said they wanted to speak to me. There’s me imagining they might offer my daughter some form of compensation for all their delays and the distress caused. I finally got to speak to someone today after leaving numerous messages to discover that although the publishers promised me faithfully that issues 2 & 3 were dispatched on the 20th Feb and were on their way to me this was in fact a lie. Issue 3 is out of stock so no issues beyond issue 1 have been sent to me. But if that isn’t bad enough they have admitted they have taken payment from my account not just for the missing issues 2 and 3 but also for issues 4 & 5! I am absolutely furious and urge all mums to boycott this magazine. They are taking money, not providing the magazine, lying to customers that it has been dispatched and don’t even seem to be particularly apologetic. My 4 year old is absolutely devastated. I have cancelled my subscription and asked for a full refund but I won’t be holding my breath! Shame on you Eaglemoss publishing.

    1. That sounds really frustrating. Sorry to hear you had such bad service. I hope they get their act together. If I were you I’d buy the issues you can get in the shops (to keep your daughter happy) and persevere with trying to get your money back.

    2. I’m really sorry you had that experience too. I must say I’ve had no problems with getting mine, although I’m still waiting on book three – the goodies arrived without the book. I’ve contacted the PR company about your comment and hoping they’ll respond to you next week.

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