Cooking with children
I seem to have conquered my fear of making a terrible mess when the kids cook with me and am now a lot more relaxed each time we attempt to make something together. They really enjoy being in the kitchen and seeing how things miraculously transform themselves from being raw, seperate foodstuffs to wonderful cakes, sauces and the like.
I’ve learnt that
- being very organised with lots of cloths & towels to hand from the start
- always insisting on everyone wearing an apron and long hair chefs tying hair back
- being firm about ‘this part is for a grown up to do’ (obviously for using the stove but also handy for when you just want to keep splatters of cake batter to a minimum and want to get the mixing done quickly)
all help to take the anxiety out of the experience.
Incidently I often use the promise of a baking session with the kids as a Special Treat. I’m always trying to think of new lovely things to reward the kids with which doesn’t involve spending any money or coming home with new toys. So far a trip to a great playground or making cakes and icing them are top of the list of lovely things to do together.
The best session we had last week was when we rented a copy of Anabel Karmel’s ‘Children’s First Cookbook‘ from the local library and tried to find something nice to take to our visit to friends in Somerset. We chose to make farmyard cakes as an appropriate gift for people holidaying on a farm and started by shopping for the ingredients we didn’t have (marshmallows, smarties, chocolate buttons and icing pens).
The results were fabulous and we all enjoyed overdosing on sugar!