Mini chefs: part four

Welcome to another article in our ‘mini chefs’ series. The mini chefs have been in the kitchen again cooking up a storm. After a short nap today I suggested to the minis we hit the kitchen for some baking.

After a few squeals of excitement and a double fist pump I felt that had been a good suggestion.

To be honest it is rare for that not to be the reaction when cooking or baking are concerned.

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I hope all four children will grow up with the skills to navigate their way around a kitchen, to understand what utensils do what, and to be able to cook a range of dishes from scratch.

I think that cooking is an important life skill but it is also lots of fun. It is so satisfying to know that they are learning whilst having heaps of fun.

Today was a cake baking day, muffins to be exact, but we decided to go for wheat and sugar free muffins with a sugar free vanilla icing.

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A couple of the children always seem to prefer to eat the icing on cakes,  rather than the cake itself, so using a sugar free icing made from natural ingredients made me feel much better about that.

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It doesn’t matter how young children are, they can get involved in some way. Letting them touch ingredients, mix, stir, measure, pour and watch the more tricky parts like using the hob or oven, all lead to developing a range of skills later on.

Our 7 and 8 year olds are quite capable of chopping and pealing a range of things and can operate a range of kitchen equipment with supervision.

The muffins really fluffed up which was a pleasant surprise, as wheat free bakes can fall a little flat sometimes. The boys loved watching them rise through the oven window.

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I think next time we will add some mashed bananas to the mix as our banana loaf always goes down well.

Icing was lots of fun and we used a disposable piping bag which tends to work well with the children.

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Waiting for them to cool down enough to try them was met with considerable impatience, but is was worth the wait!

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What have you been baking with the little ones?

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The Twinkle Diaries

6 comments

  1. Great post! So important for children to grow up with cooking skills and agree with you that they can get involved in some way or another. Most kids absolutely love cooking too. I can see that yours had lots of fun baking. Love the sugar free icing idea. We have recently made cheese and chive muffins and marigold buns. Thanks for sharing #TwinklyTuesday

  2. Wow I literally just wrote a post about cooking with my 3-year-old boy for the first time. We made pizzas and he loved the stirring and mixing. I was just thinking to make it a regular thing and to find more kid-friendly recipes. Thanks for this one, might try muffins next! Sabrina xx #twinklytuesday

  3. This looks fabulous — you put me to shame!! I’ve never done baking with my boys… one of them has an egg allergy and the thought of them licking their fingers or the spoon absolutely terrifies me — that’s the main reason I haven’t let them in on any cake making I’ve been doing. They can eat cooked egg but raw egg would see us in hospital.

    I should really try an egg-free recipe so they can have the experience of cooking anyway!! Will look for some recipes. Thanks so much for linking up with #TwinklyTuesday — hope to see you again next week! x

    Caro | http://www.thetwinklediaries.co.uk

    1. Oh yes, I can imagine that would make things tricky. Check out Holland and Barrett’s new free from online shop, you might find some ideas there 🙂

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