Baking with children. AIBU to just not 'get' it?

[funkypigeon]

A mum I met recently said she thought baking is 'such an important thing to do'

Can't bear it personally. I just feel anxious the whole time, the mess just gets out of hand and it ends up a stress-fest, really.

Gah, AIBU??

It's a great way to get across basic scientific concepts, but I know what you mean.

I normally compromise by letting them watch and lick the spoon afterwards.

YABU- get them cooking as early as possible and you have less to do yourself.

My 2 year old likes rolling out cookie dough and cutting out the shapes, just like playdoh except you can eat it when you're finished .

Yabu, cooking with children instills an understanding of food and food processing. Cooking with children is a sensory experience for them and can be joyful and educational. Yes it's messy, but it is really that inconvenient to wipe down and brush up.
Hang the rules, get messy, enjoy each stage of the experience with them, and eat the spoils.

YANBU

Great if you enjoy it, not a big deal if you don't. My Mum never baked with me, I love to bake and do it a lot but not much with my own DC, happy to help now they are old enough to get on with it themselves!

Certainly not worth getting stressed or smug about.

It doesn't have to be baking but I do think cooking with children from a young age is important

You need to bake simple things and things you/ they know how at first.

Carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting favourite here

Ours out toddlers so a tad too young to measure. I add double ingredients into two bowls they have a bowl each to mix

15 mins in oven

They mix some frosting each

Then they ice half and we freeze half for later. The slapped on icing part takes them ages and then they cover in freeze dry strawberries ( takes another 10-15 mins). They look erm child made but taste great! Probably an hour in total ( and I sit sipping tea whilst they ice and sprinkle for 30 mins of that)

We also do bread. I basically let them play with the dough for half hour to save me kneading it! ( with play dough cutters/ rolling pins and all)

There is nothing wrong with teaching kids the essentials of baking at an early age. Scones, bread, cookies, sponges etc. all useful stuff and leads on to cooking main meals.

You're right OP it is messy but I can take that in exchange for knowing my kids will grow up knowing how to cook for themselves (and to get away from ready meals!).

My youngest loves to cook now and made a fantastic seafood linguine with home made garlic bread at the weekend. Naice

I don't mind the mess so much, but its the logistics of finding a safe way for them to reach the counter, not TOTALLY wreck the cake mixture, not just eat it all and they usually lose interest v quickly. I've now refined it slightly. DCs are 3 and 2 and they can:
tip stuff from scales into bowl
stir with a wooden spoon
set out the paper cases
help roll out dough
press out shapes
They CAN'T:
be anywhere near the mixer (the noise scares them)
spoon the mixture into the cases
do anything oven related (obviously)

I've found the best way is to knock up some gingerbread dough when they are elsewhere and then let them go to town with rolling and shaping.

I hate, hate,hate it - especially since my two oldest dcs seem to have a finger mining for green gold every time I look at them. Can't be arsed with it myself and try to delegate to DH as a bonding activity as often as possible.

Baking I can do.

Painting and 'craft'

The photo that got me through some of DS2's more horrible moments is one of him in his apron helping to make a cake. I have it framed in my kitchen.

I think cooking and food prep with children is more valuable than baking cakes.

We have one of those Ikea step stools that they haul over to the island if they see something I'm cooking they are interested in. DD is an expert egg cracker and gets most upset if I do it without involving her. DS is impatient at peeling carrots but loves preparing a "buffet" or a fruit salad.

DS is 9. I am thinking I will get him to menu plan for a week or two in the summer holidays. This can be v valuable, budgeting, nutrition, variety, thinking about prep time etc.

If the idea is to get them enjoying the process of preparing food, doing it with an irritated person is going to have the opposite effect. There, I've given you a get out.

Personally I don't mind cooking with them but there are plenty of other things that I am too impatient for, like getting the paddling pool out and having to fish 'a bee!!' (I.e. any flying insect or, in fact any particle of dust that has landed therein) out every ten seconds, and the FAFF when the doorbell rings. So stick to what doesn't drive you mental, I say.

Craft?

I suppose it depends if you are trying to get some baking done for a purpose, or just mucking around. If I'm baking for a purpose, I do it when the DCs aren't around.

It's worth getting electronic scales so that you are the one pouring ingredients whilst they have to check the numbers and tell you when you have enough.

Otherwise my DCs get to break the eggs (fine if done in a controlled way) and a bit of mixing, but I tend to whizz cake mix in a blender anyway. So it's mostly the decorating/eating bit mine get to do, and enjoy.

Nigella's "How to Eat" has some good child-friendly recipes (jam tarts are good, and easy) and dare I mention "I Can Cook" as a good way to see what children can/cannot do.

fairy I have a little table from IKEA (was about £15 with 2 chairs) which I move into the kitchen when baking with DS and it is the ideal height for him and is much safer than him trying to reach the counter.

depends on the children and their age really.

You have to be in the mood to do it I think!

"such an important thing to do" - pompous bolleaux
but I love cooking with my kids, and they love it too
the mess doesn't bother me

I think it's ok to do something a bit out of your comfort zone if it helps your kids learn (measuring, weighing, timing, organisation, mixing, patience and cleaning up) and it's a cheap and easy way to spend a rainy day too.

If you truly hate it that much find a way to do it so you can enjoy it too and not get stressed. It does pay off as others have said, my DS can and has made me crêpes for breakfast but before that a 'gourmet' mothers' day breakfast of toast with four different toppings

I don't know what work is like for you but when I went s/e I was confident in him being able to at least make himself something vaguely healthier than a crisp sandwich

DD likes baking. I find it stressful. She only semi-engages, doesn't like getting her hands dirty, so rubbing-in method things result in her wanting to wash her hands before we have got the mixture done. Stirring means things go everywhere. Using our Kenwood chef is the best option. Putting cake mixture into cases results in mixture all over the cases and tins. Cutting out biscuits results in over-enthusiastic stamping with the cutter.

We only bake on very dull days. However we have found a fabulous solution - her room leader at nursery loves to bake with them and does so at least once a week, sometimes everyday.

I used to make chocolate cripsies and those boxed cake things never anything complicated and never every week, dd loves baking but she is now 15 and makes us cakes still leaves a mess though

oh I also was a dab hand at icing digestive biscuits

My kids have the attention span of...umm....well...what's that?...oh biscuits.

It does not make for a fun family time, it makes for, why ami spending time showing you how to do something I hate when we could be our flying a kite, or poking jellyfish or summat?