It’s great when children get to an age
when they want to help out in the kitchen and to have a go at baking after
watching you make cakes for birthdays or as a treat after dinner.
Depending on their age, there are
always recipes which they can follow – even the youngest would be chefs can
create lovely treats which don’t require any cooking.
The place to start with the youngest
children is a selection of recipes which don’t require baking – just some help
perhaps from an adult to melt chocolate. These include family favourites such
as cornflake crispies, no-bake cookies, peanut butter balls and fridgetrays of
chopped up fruit, soft toffee sweets and cereal. It doesn’t matter if they get
messy, pop an apron on them and give encouragement to learn to use the basic
tools of the trade such as bowls, preparation boards and wooden spoons. They’ll
quickly grow in confidence when they see the amazing food they’ve produced and
how everyone in the family quickly eats it all.
As the children grow a little older,
they can start to use the cooker, and tray bakes are a good way to introduce
them to appliances such as a Neff oven. Using
a combination of healthy ingredients such as; dried fruits, oats and syrup then
can quickly make tasty breakfast bars or to take to school as part of their
packed lunch.
For most children, their first cakes
are the traditional fairy cake. A basic sponge mix poured into paper cases and
cooked for around 12 minutes. The top is sliced off and halved, and a sweet
butter icing mix is placed on the top of the cake and the two top pieces are
arranged as wings.
Cooking is a great way for children to
express their creativity, either inventing new combinations of ingredients for
tray bakes or to create artistic wizardry with tubs of silver balls, hundreds
and thousands and edible glitter. It makes for a great afternoon of fun, some
fantastic candid photos and lovely food at the end.
The most important thing when
introducing children to baking in the kitchen is that they are supervised at
all times. Cookers, ovens, knives, sockets can all cause injuries and whilst as
adults we are aware of the danger; there will be less experience with a child,
and there must always be someone there to help and watch.
Cooking for children is a fantastic
life skill and with there’s no better lessons than learning how to cook using
an oven. It’s fun, teaches independence and confidence and shows them just how
great a job they do when a plate of brightly coloured and decorated home baked
cookies are placed on the table, and they disappear in minutes. Furthermore, a
new model oven such as those available from www.applianceworld.co.uk, will help
to educate children on how ovens operate and what kinds of food they can cook.
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