Baking with 2.8mo?

[ifaistos]

Dd often asks to do baking with me but whenever I've tried I just loose my patience. She'll just try and spoon stuff onto the floor or refuse to let me touch anything. I tried doing iced biscuits where she had lots of diferent coloured icing to put on the biscuits but she just wanted to eat all the icing. It's a shame because I'm crap at playing dolls and role playing with her but would enjoy baking together.
Can anyone suggest some more age appropriate projects for us?

Can you not let her get on with messing up the kitchen and eating icing etc while you bake something on your own but 'with' her if that makes sense?? She still gets time with you, you're calling it baking but she doesn't actually have to do anything that will be spoilt.

you need to chill a bit
put newspaper down on the floor
forget about making stuff that tastes and looks perfect, and think of it more as a sensory play experience. or prepare two trays of biccies, two bowls of icing and two piping bags, and you can show her how to ice without having to take the fun stuff away from her to do so.

Make fairy cakes rather than biscuits: don't bother with icing but let your dc spoon in some sultanas and mash up a banana to mix in. Kids are better at spooning cake mix into cases than cutting out or icing biscuits IME. Then let her sit on the kitchen floor and watch then rise through the oven window while you tidy up.

I do pretty much what OddBodd suggests. Agree that you need to chill out a bit too. Get her an apron and a spoon and bowl and let her do her own stuff.

Sometimes I bake the cake or biscuits when the DC are not around and they will be quite content to sit and decorate them with icing, sprinkles etc. I let them choose their own sometimes in the supermarket. They do make a mess but they are kids.

Yup agree with others, you just have to chill out. Baking with children is an exercise in doing things as fast as you possibly can before they get bored of it while trying to minimise the amount of flour on the floor. Icing involves a flood of slightly too runny iciing being poured all over the top of the buns and biscuits then some will be decorated with a huge mound of sweets and others will just have one placed on top. Not show winners but lovely all the same!

We make buns a lot as it is a nice, quick and easy mix to make. You get them to watch the weights on the scales and yell when they see the right numbers. They can pour it into the bowl. You use marg not butter so they can cream it with the sugar. You let them hold the egg and put your hand on top so they get to break it. While beating it in which can be a bit tricky my 2 year old loves to set the bun cases out on the tray. They can then spoon the mixture in :) Jam tarts are good too, pastry rolling is nice and mess free, they can stamp out circles easily and spoon jam in.

Mine adore bread or pizza dough making too. If you can get them to keep their hands out until you've got it past the sticky stage they will spend hours kneading it and making it into shapes. By the time they get bored it is well kneaded and can be left to rise.

Hello. DD loves baking too. I have a small kitchen so whilst there is always mess, its not too much tidying up and I have learnt to be very relaxed when baking with wee folk and it makes everything so much easier. Try pancakes. Wee folk can whisk egg and milk together as well as sieving dry ingredients - although there will be a bit of mess! My DD is good at putting paper cases into bun trays too. I avoid icing as it inevitably gets eaten and causes a sugar rush! I also use plastic bowls and jugs and put a damp cloth underneath to stop them slipping so I don't need to worry about them being tipped over and breaking.

I make banana bread a lot with DS too (2.2yrs). I let him mash the bananas with a fork (once I've got them part mashed so they don't fly everywhere) and brush the tin with butter as well as tip all the ingredients into the bowl and tap the sieve etc. I give it a mix then let him do a few stirs. That way he thinks he is baking and the results are still edible

One of mine is exactly the same and it drives me insane but I do persevere. My top tip is do something with raisins in and give her a pile of raisins that is specifically for eating not for putting in. But ultimately as other posters say, they will make a mess and "explore tastes"... Makes me think about a children's centre thing I went to which suggested I make playdough with my kids. Um cream of tartare, food colouring and gallons of salt. I DON'T THINK SO!!!!

Thanks for the tips. There's a few things I hadn't thought of she might like, like buttering the tin or setting out the cupcake cases, and I'll do fairy cakes next time rather than biscuits (even I was having trouble icing them tbh).
I probably do need to chill out a bit. I'm not fussed about the mess, or getting beautiful results, but I just struggle to get anything done at all with her. I'll give her things to do like mash the banana or stir, but she'll loose interest within seconds and just want to grab whatever I'm holding. I think she's so excited to be touching and tasting all this stuff.
As for eating all the icing, I don't mind exactly but it's not really baking together. I might as well just give her a box of sprinkles to eat and leave her to it.

I make pizza with my DD's - they love messing around with the dough and can mould it and pull it to their hearts content. then they can smear on the tomato base, throw some grated cheese on and artfully arrange some ham and veg.

If you prepare it in advance, you can easily hold their attention. We do this with our toddler group too and all of them from age 18 months join in

DS and me used to make these muffins although I tend to use some milk and some plain chocolate chips.

If you are really struggling you could always weigh out the dry ingredients first then get her to put the cases in the tin, crack the egg and stir everything together.

I made melting moments the other day with the dcs. Dd's mixing skills need more practice! She managed to flick the spoon up as I'd added teh sugar nad covered ds in it then when I'd put egg yolks in did the same to herself so she was coated in a sticky mess of flour and egg . It was rather amusing though. If that sounds a little too messy the next part was great so you could always make the mixture without dc first. I got the 4 year old to make balls of mixture and roll the in oats then the 2 year old patted them down and put the cherry on the top. That was nice and tidy and controlled :)

I tried pizza this weekend. Started out quite badly. I thought I couldn't go wrong just giving her some dough to knead and play with. But it ended up flung across the room because she wanted me to roll her tiny balls and I wasn't making them small enough or something (?).

This afternoon we managed to have some fun spreading tomato sauce and putting ham and cheese on top, though, and I think she appreciated eating something she'd made herself. So I'll keep trying.

I used to make soup with my DS at that age. Very simple - I fried onion and garlic in advance and let it cool down, then gave him diced sweet potato, lentils, stock cube, spices, and water in a plastic bottle so he could pour it in by himself. And then handed the whole process over to him.

He enjoyed adding a bit of this and a bit of that, and stirring. Ideally most of what he was given ended up in the pan, but if a bit got lost it didn't matter at all.

Now he's older we also do cakes, but he still enjoys making soup.

I do a lot of baking with my toddler but the first time I was off buying all the raw ingrediants, I thought what's the point when she'll chuck it all around the kitchen. Now I buy those cake mix kits for about 2 quid, cake cases, sweets icing all included and let her go for her life.

I'll teach her the real ingrediants when she can be trusted not to guzzle the mixture down in fistfuls!

My ds is 2.8 we make 'cookies' every week. I give him a bit of butter, sugar and flour to eat mix whilst I actually make them. It's fun. Though the other day I left him playing with his ingredients and they all ended up down the toaster.

So no we can't do it together, but we can do alongside each other.

My DD loves baking. She prefers making scones to cakes as she can get her hands right in there. She loves cracking eggs and is now pretty good, she will whisk, push flour through the sieve, grease tins, put paper cases in, cuts shapes.
When we sit down to eat she shouts 'we can cook'
I agree with schmee pile of raisins for eating is a good distraction if you need to do a bit yourself without an eager helper!

You can cooking as well as baking. Start really simple, but making a sandwich (butter/jam/peanut butter) or making a pasta salad where you make it all and she stirs it all up.

DD (2.10) and I made fish fingers the other day. She loved it! We frequently make pizza, although she eats most of the pineapple when she is supposed to be chopping it.

Oh, and we made jam tarts today. You can even make the pastry ahead of time so it's just rolling, cutting and spooning the jam in.

Ha ha, my ds1 always used to eat the butter, great big chunks of it, he still does now at 5 yrs old and we both have fun licking the bowl out!! You just have to accept its going to be very very messy and not turn out how you would expect!

I had to change things with dd because actual cooking did my head in for a while, even though pretty good I had an end point in my head. She really just wanted to mix stuff together so for ages she did "water and flour" where she mixed kitchen bits and bobs together and made her own dough. Or i'd make biscuit dough and she'd roll and cut out. Now at five we she will do proper recipes again, weighing stuff and is really competent at mixing, egg cracking and so on.

Oh, and for ages she's made chicken goujons by dipping in flour, beaten egg then breadcrumbs

I think biscuits and cakes can be quite stressful things to make with your children at first, there are so many steps. I found it easier to start with making other things, even something simple like tuna mayonnaise, it's very quick but they feel like they've done something grown up, and because it's so quick they don't lose interest and you don't lose patience. Also breading fish, the same way littlebylittle described making chicken goujons. Fishcakes are nice and messy to make too. Pizza is easy, as you could buy a premade base and just decorate, it doesn't matter if the toppings get eaten a bit.

If you'd rather go sweet I think cakes are easier to stir than biscuits, muffins even more so.

Also, you could try cutting down the amount of steps, for example, weigh out the cake ingredients in advance, then your child can help you tip things in and stir rather than have to be patient while you weigh things. Or make the biscuit dough in advance so all you do with them is roll out and use cutters.

If your LO is a bit greedy, then have a sneaky pot of raisins hidden which you can produce for them to have a munch on or a spoon to lick while you do a step they can't help with.

I always try and make sure I have lots of time spare, that always helps me stay patient!