Cooking with kids Most parents, grandparents, nannies, elder siblings or cousins (anyone old enough to be subjected to the possibility of cooking with a child) appear to run screaming from the words ‘cooking with kids.’ The sharp knives and hot ovens, the considerable mess, the sticky fingers and smashed plates… What good could possibly come from such potential chaos? At Christmas time families come together, and food is pretty much everywhere. Embrace the challenge (and follow some simple steps) you While may be surprised at what a lot of adults shy away young children come to from cooking with understand and learn kids, the brave few embrace at such a young age... it. In the past few years, programmes like ‘I Can Cook’ (shown on CBBC) have become more popular with kids and parents. ‘I can cook’ shows children how they can follow simple step by step actions and produce wonderful things for themselves and their families. By encouraging children to get involved in the kitchen, a whole new world of taste, color and variety is opening up to them.
If executed correctly, cooking with kids can be a real joy. The main mistake made by parents and others is in choosing what to make. Chose a dish that is fairly easy to make as children don’t respond well if it is very complicated. And one that won’t take too long to cook as they don’t have much patience either. Keep to something simple - soufflés are not appropriate. Pizza is good because it can be prepared away from the stove and all children seem to like knead dough. For this reason, biscuits and cakes are also good. All of these dishes help to teach children both how to weigh food, they also let them see what happens are ingredients combine (such as oil and vinegar) and how simple things like tomatoes change when they are cooked. Things like simple biscuits and cakes are also perfect because the cooking then turns into an art class and children have fun decorating their work once it has baked. And even toddlers can follow the instructions to make a cake mix if children are to be introduced to the wonders of baking really early on. There are endless varieties of edible decorations such as hundreds and thousands, gem sweets, rice paper and colored icing.
Ginger Bread Men Recipe 1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and mix. 3. Add the butter and mix together until its like breadcrumbs. Plain Flour (350Grams/12oz) 4. Stir in the sugar, beat the egg and Golden Syrup together. Bicarbonate of Soda (1tsp) 6. Mix together until it clumps together, then bring out of the bowl Ground Ginger (2tsp) and knead until smooth. Ground Cinnamon (1tsp) 7. Roll the dough out until you read desired thickness and using Butter (125Grams/5oz) Light Brown Sugar (175Grams/6oz) the cutters, cut the ginger bread man shapes through the dough. 8. Place them on the baking tray, and bake for 10-12 minutes until Egg (1) lightly golden brown. Golden Syrup (4tbsp) 9. Place on a wire rack to cool. Decorate!