BY BETH BALDWIN (GUEST WRITER)
But now…my daughter (aged 4) and I love to bake together, we do it every week! And I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m here to convince you it’s actually fab! I am also going to be sharing my baking with children tips!
1) It’s a time to bond and make memories! The reason I persevered through the baking angst is because I have such fond memories of baking when I was a child, and it’s so great knowing that I’m making these memories with her that will last. We always have a fun time when we bake together!
2) It’s a learning experience. Every time we bake I use the opportunity to test her ability to read simple recipes, measure ingredients and follow instructions. She’s not just having fun, but learning every time!
3) It stops becoming so messy! The older she gets, and the more we practice, she understands the cleaning process a bit more and there are less spills than we had at the beginning!
4) It allows your child to express some creativity! I used to cringe a bit when I felt like my daughter was “ruining” what we’d baked (I know that sounds horrible, I feel awful typing it, but the lack of control used to make me really uncomfortable) – but now, it’s so fun and liberating to see her chuck everything she can at a cake and see what happens! And if for example, we’re making cupcakes for an occasion that need to look neat, we bake a few extra and my daughter can do whatever she wants to the extras and we can be more careful with the rest.
So, now that I’ve hopefully convinced you that baking with little ones can be so fun and beneficial, I thought I’d give you our favourite go-to recipe for when it’s raining, when we’re bored, when we want to whip up something tasty to gift to someone, when we need something quick and reliable. It’s a sugar cookie recipe that we’ve been using forever and it’s fool proof!
Leave a Reply