Monday, September 18, 2017

Playing Sweet Shops With Addo Play



Today we had a quiet stay at home day, hiding from the rain and waiting for some parcels to be delivered. Soph loves playing with modelling clay and dough, so we broke out our new Swirly Whirly Sweets set from Addo Play's Ready Steady Dough range.




We're already big fans of the range with one of our favourites being the fab pizza making kit we got last year. This one looked to be super exciting, a real sweet making machine, with simple assembly and fun looking results. This set is £29.99, but right now it's half price, so just £14.99 for the set including the large machine, four pots of dough and several accesories - great value!




It took just a couple of minutes to set up the sweet factory, not bad with a toddler in tow! Soph loves playing shop, making her own sweet shop, cake shop or more recently selling me the things I'm about to have for lunch! A real mini entrepreneur!




After setting up the sweet factory, we got to work creating. This is very easy to use, pop in a 'sausage' of dough and turn the handle. The spirals inside the machine will then cleverly mould chop and shape the dough into a series of little balls that roll down the twirly whirly slide.




I did find that after a few goes, Soph got a little over enthusuastic with the dough and it stopped turning/creating balls. I tried to unblock it as per the instructions but eventually ahd to unscrew it all, clear and put back together. This took a fair while so I really hoped she didn't do it again, but at three I knew this was pretty likely! When it was all working fine though, it was no problem for her to turn the handle, I just had to keep reminding her about the amount of dough to pop in the machine. We did have a few blockages during play but the rest were easily sorted with the 'knife' supplied, clearing under the spirals and removing excess dough via the door at the back.




When Alf returned home from school, being that bit older (nearly 6), he was a lot more careful and had no issues with blockages, creating balls of dough in multi colours over and over all ready for the next step.




Although the balls of dough look really pretty when a few colours are mixed, you can also use another section of the machine to 'stamp' the ball shapes into different shaped sweets. Soph articularly liked this part, getting the sweets all ready for her shop. Both kids enjoyed making different lollipops too.




The kids have really enjoyed playing with this one and give it a thumbs up. Although I think the set is a total bargain at the current price, I did have to help out quite a lot when Soph was playing, but hopefully she will find it all easier with practise. The blocking up/spirals not turning was a bit of an issue for me as although mostly it was a quick fix, it was a bit of a pain at times. With this in mind, I'd maybe reccomend it to kids a little older, maybe four and upwards, just so that they understand a little more about not ramming a whole pot in at a time!




The Swirly Whirly Sweets set is on sale right now at The Entertainer and would make a great extra for Christmas, birthdays or just to have in store for those rainy days at home.


Do you have any little dough fans at home that would enjoy this?




Disclosure: We were sent this set in exchange for an honest review. 
All words and images are my own.