My cousin Eloise absolutely loves her little plastic kitchen and the majority of time I'm playing with her is spent being force fed, and having to pretend to eat plastic food. She absolutely loves pottering about with most things, as long as she can slip into a little role playing situation.

When I saw this for £8 in Early Learning Centre I couldn't resist buying it, there was also a birthday cake but I thought I would buy this as part of her birthday present later in the year if she enjoyed her Ice Cream set. I later found out from the Early Learning Centre website that they also do a pizza and all three products are part of the Cut and Play range. Each of the plastic pieces fit together in different combinations with velcro meaning it's easy enough to pull apart but bits won't fall off.

The set includes two cornets, one cornet cup and two smaller blue tubs; these are the 'ice cream holders'. Along with this are seven scoops of ice cream, five of these scoops are pink and therefore meant to be strawberry ice cream there is also one scoop of chocolate coloured ice cream and a scoop of blue ice cream. Each of these has varying toppings, different sprinkles and sauces. There are also separate pieces which form two blobs of cream, one topped with a cherry and one topped with a raspberry. What really makes this set though, although it may seem like a small addition is the ice cream scoop. The scoop allows a much more realistic ice cream parlour role playing, as essentially, who scoops ice cream with their hand? The spoon doesn't get used that much by Eloise; although it's meant for 'eating' the ice cream out the tubs she pretends to lick it like it was in a cone anyway.

Whenever I have been with Ellie and she's been playing with this the parts have stuck together well, and we've never has a problem with scoops of ice cream falling off when you're trying to eat it! All the pieces are interchangeable which enables the child to use their imagination creating different combinations. There are enough pieces in the set to create ice cream for five people, therefore encouraging the child to interact with others and ask them what they would on their ice cream. I also feel that these sorts of activities promote sharing, as Ellie has learnt to not just keep the best ingredients for her own ice cream!

The set is intended for children aged 3 and upwards, Eloise is 3 now, nearly 4 and I can't see her outgrowing these items for a good couple of years yet. It's also worth noting that most of the pieces in this set are predominantly pink so geared more towards girls in my opinion. I think this is a good buy, it's priced just right, it's a little treat without being too expensive and guaranteed to ensure hours of fun!