Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Book Club

We had a lot of fun with this one!

To start off, I had hidden golden tickets around our little housing development outdoor area, and as the kids arrived, they had to each find a golden ticket before coming into our chocolate factory (our house).  I really wish I could remember where I had gotten the printable for the ticket because it was editable and simple, but I seem to not have saved the information!

My sons and I had a lot of fun setting up the decorations.  We used some blankets to make a chocolate waterfall from the corner of our living room.  We wrapped bright balloons in plastic wrap to look like candies.  They didn't look like pinterest but still a fun addition.

I made some "swudge" (melted marshmallows, white chocolate, a bit of butter, and green food coloring and then rolled it out and cut it) and put it in containers by the "river."  As kids came in, they were pretty excited to taste the "swudge."

My son made a long paper "tube" with Augustus Gloop stuck in it! :)

My son also set up the "Nut Room."  We put some empty clothes to look like the squirrels were throwing someone down the garbage chute with the "bad" nuts.

             

We had "snozberry" lickable wallpaper on one wall.  It took the kids a little while to trust they were allowed to go and lick it, but once they did, they really like it.  I put a strip labeled with each kid's name to avoid everyone licking the same spots!  To make the "wallpaper," I made a thick syrup from adding a bit of water to sugar, along with some food coloring and fruit flavoring and then dripped it onto strips of wax paper.  Once it was cool, I taped the strips to the wall.

We had an "Invention Room" set up.  The kids worked in groups to design their own sweets and then present them to the group.

                   

We went outdoors again to the "Juicing Room" to help Violet Beauregard.  The kids were in pairs and tossed the water balloons back and forth until the balloons were all popped.

It was a little difficult to come up with a main dish for lunch to balance all the sweets!  I considered attempting to make pot roast flavored gum, but well, that crossed the line of crazy.  So, it wasn't exactly from the book, but it seemed to fit with the sweets theme to make meatloaf "cupcakes."  I just cooked the meatloaf in muffin pans and then topped with mashed potatoes to look like the icing.

We obviously had lots of sweets!  In addition to the swudge, we had some candy set out with signs to look like things from the book.

I also made Wonka's Scrumptious Fudge Mallow Delight and printed out the cute label from here (and she also has a delicious-sounding recipe but more complicated).

I followed a simple fudge recipe given to me by a friend:

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk 

1 2/3 cup sugar (pretty sure I cut this down since I think the original recipe was actually evaporated milk, so I think I maybe did 1 cup of sugar with the sweetened condensed milk)

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup miniature marshmallows

1 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

Bring first three ingredients to a boil for 5 minutes (stirring pretty constantly). 

Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients until all marshmallows are melted.

Pour into a butter pan and refrigerate for an hour.
Before I put the pan in the refrigerator, I poured in some extra marshmallows and pressed them in lightly so that they would stick in but still be visible as whole marshmallows.