Quick Links

Cooking with Candles

This activity is as old as the hills but is still good to do once in a while. In my day we just had to boil some water which as you can imagine is not that exciting! One way to make this activity more exciting is to cook a hot dog. Provide the scouts with a piece of tin foil, a wire coat hanger, a candle, a match to light the candle, some water and a hot dog.
The idea is to make a pan from the coat hanger and tin foil, then to cook the food over the heat from the candle. From experience I would NOT use night lights (as illustrated in the above picture) because they do not produce much heat. To make a pan from the coat hanger and tin foil then examine the step by step illustration below:
1. Get a metal coat hanger.
2. Shape the coat hanger as shown into a circular shape.
3. Wrap the tin foil around the sides of the coat hanger to make the pan.
4. Add the water/food to the pan and put over a burning candle for about 20-40 mins.
Once they have cooked the hot dog then give them a finger roll and ketchup so they can enjoy what they have achieved.

Note
1. Whenever dealing with naked flames and Scouts ALWAYS take necessary fire precautions.
2. Use pie tins or thick tin foil. When we tried it the biggest problem was small tears in the tin foil which caused leaks.
3. The chances are the Scouts will fail to complete this activity so have a pan of boiling water ready at the end so at least they can cook the hotdogs at the end of the evening and eat them!.