Baking with children provides unique opportunities for learning and bonding, for the parent/caregiver as well as the child. Depending on how old your child is, you may be in for a little more work along with the fun, but the experience pays off dividends in the end. There are many teachable moments, and you’ll find the experience more rewarding if you prepare for the mess (psychologically) and commit to being a happy teacher.
In this article, learn the reasons why you should invest time in baking with children from a young age. Then, find out tips and ideas to help make the process easier for both you and them. Where the rubber meets the road, it’s about the quality time and the process, not the perfect-ness of the result. Happy reading!Think back to your own experiences helping your parents or older relatives with simple baking – bet those were among your most treasured memories, right? You must have felt very grown-up when the adult trusted you to pour out ingredients, help with the mixing, decorating, and even cleaning up when it was all done!
Why is baking good for kids? Here are some more benefits of learning baking skills while young:Showing a child increasing levels of trust and allowing them small amounts of responsibility during baking boosts their sense of self-worth. Entrusting a child with such responsibility encourages the child to expect more of themselves and live up to the image you see in them.Involving children in food preparation encourages them to be more aware of their food choices. If you inculcate healthy habits during meal preparation, including how weights, ratios, temperature, and time affect the final products. Baking is a science, and there’s a lot you can teach kids while showing them how to prepare simple tasty treats for themselves.Bilateral coordination is one of the fine motor skills your child builds from the time they are toddlers. It involves getting both sides of your body to work together for an end result – tying shoelaces, jumping, cutting with scissors, using rulers, etc. In baking, there are many opportunities to improve bilateral coordination: rolling dough with a rolling pin or flattening with hands, sifting flour into a bowl, making balls from dough or for cake pops, among others.Pouring batter into tins, ingredients into baking bowls/jugs, measuring or decorating cookies and cakes with icing all help to practice hand-eye coordination. You can also build the shoulder girdle stability by using these pouring activities to help them develop a steady hand.Every muscle in the body is built with practice, and baking provides opportunities to nurture physical as well as cognitive development. Squeezing dough when baking cookies, and decorating with homemade piping bags to make different decorations all encourage hand and arm muscles to get working.Baking with kids should always involve a recipe they can read and follow. This boosts a critical part of child development: learning listening and sequencing skills. Cleaning up while their treats bake teaches responsibility and how to organize themselves. Cutting out cookies builds spatial perception: the child must get the most number of cookies from the rollout of dough.When baking with children, it’s essential to pick out recipes that they can handle depending on their age. As they grow older, you can move to more complex baking procedures. The best part is that there are hundreds of yummy treats for children of all ages. Below are a few easy baking ideas for kids:Before allowing your children to bake with or without you, start with teaching them the rules of safety in the kitchen. For example, read the recipe through before starting, tie back your hair and wear an apron, wash your hands as often as possible, gather all your ingredients and equipment, and have an adult nearby for children younger than ten. Tweens (10-12) may bake unsupervised once the adult is confident in their skills.Baking cookies is the best idea for super simple baking with kids. There is a short ingredient list, a ton of opportunities to customize, and simple instructions to follow. Younger children can use the cookie cutters and decorate finished or unfinished cookies. Older children can mix and roll out the dough, or even handle the whole recipe, especially when using baking kits with pre-measured ingredients.Children of any age can use their cookie cutters to cut out shapes from gelatin. Older children can mix the entire recipe – urge them to be extra careful if using the stove to boil the water.If you have a break-making machine and children old enough to handle measuring, you can trust them with simple bread-making recipes.Muffins and cupcakes are fairly easy to make, and they don’t take too long to bake – unlike cakes. Be careful not to overmix the batter, as this makes the muffins come out tougher. Encourage the child to be careful when using the oven.Baking with kids is a process that needs a little extra care. If you follow these tips, you can ensure that your child learns, has fun and stays safe in the kitchen:Let the kids choose the recipes, which will make them more interested in the baking process. For younger kids, you can choose two or three age-appropriate recipes and let them make the selection.Don’t get frazzled with the mess, or with a less-than-perfect result. Mistakes are how children learn and grow, so don’t make them too big a deal. Instead, encourage them to use it as a learning opportunity and allow them to help clean up.There are smaller tools, like rolling pins or mixing spoons, made especially for kids. But you can always improvise with what you have around the house.Children’s baking kits can make the baking experience a lot easier for you and the kids, especially when you’re baking with preschoolers or lower elementary school children. Younger kids will also have challenges making accurate measurements.
Baking sets for tweens usually come with pre-measured ingredients to take the uncertainty out of the process, especially when you don’t have the right measuring tools. Therefore, you can trust your tweens to bake using the kit and be confident in the result.
Using baking kits with ingredients included, you can entertain kids while teaching them responsibility and encourage them to nurture their cooking skills without making the process too difficult for them.
There are two ways to get baking kits for kids: you can sign up for a monthly subscription to get a kit delivered to your home. Each month brings different recipes to try out, complete with easy-to-follow ingredients with pictures for kids of any age. Your kids will have something to look forward to every month! As a bonus, you’ll find educational activities to keep your little charges occupied while their treats are baking.Learning how to bake is a thrilling and educative experience for children of all ages, not least because of all the fun treats to be enjoyed at the end. Teach your children how to make delicious and healthy snacks using easy-to-follow baking kits, with recipes and instructions.
You can take out the mess from the process (some of it, anyway!) and leave the fun and learning. As you wait for the treats, enjoy activity books with word games and other educational activities. What could be better than that?