What are your go-to bakes to make with the kids? Tell us to win a £100 John Lewis voucher + signed copy of Hugless Douglas and the Great Cake Bake

[SorchaMumsnet]

Join Douglas on a honey hunt in the seventh Hugless Douglas adventure from David Melling.

The sheep are baking honey cakes and Douglas can't wait to taste them. He's sure that food without honey just isn't yummy. But can he ever be tempted to try something new?

To be in with a chance of winning a signed copy of Hugless Douglas and the Great Cake Bake PLUS a £100 John Lewis voucher, just tell us - what are your favourite bakes to create with your children? (include the recipes if you can!)

This discussion is sponsored by Hachette and will end on 21 September

Books T&Cs apply

The DDs also love making spirals -

Unroll a packet of ready rolled puff pastry, spread with a mixture of tomato purée and ketchup, sprinkle on grated cheese, chopped ham and herbs. Roll up the other way then cut into slices. Place the spirals on s baking tray and bake at 180C for about 20 minutes until golden.

We love making fairy cakes using a basic sponge mix (4 oz flour/sugar/butter and 2 eggs) and empire biscuits using this recipe- whatever we make always has to be decorated with coloured icing and lots of hundreds and thousands!

Nanna's chocolate brownies and syrup biscuits are our favourites! Use standard store cupboard ingredients and easy for kids to make.

Really basic fairy cakes, but then the thing the 3yo then loves is the decorating. Last time we went a bit mad with icing and loads of smarties. It rendered the cakes a bit inedible, but she loved doing it so that's all that matters really

Simple fairy cakes, they know the recipe off by heart and do everything except the oven. They are a favourite because you can decorate them however you want, and that is the best messiest part

CheeseEMouse snap!

Gingerbread men (known until recently as "ninjabread men") and choc chip banana muffins. He loves it, minimum effort for the joy, we all enjoy and it only takes the time they take to bake for me to clean up the kitchen post along sesh!!!
He ALWAYS eats the raw ingredients though, despite discouragement, so grim, beat face as when he ate raw ginger...😂

Shortbread, from a cookbook I got with a belling cooker years ago. 225g Butter (has to be butter), 100g icing sugar, 100g cornflour, 225g plain flour, pinch of salt. Combine and knead till smooth. Cut out and bake at 145 degrees until just starting to colour. Dredge with caster sugar. Better than m and s shortbread according to dm.

Our most recent hit was rocky road. I use Nigella's as a rough guide, but add in different things depending on what we fancy or what I have in the cupboard. They like helping to bash the biscuits, break up the chocolate and cut the marshmallows with scissors. We always top them with some sprinkles.

My favourite was when I added chopped up Cadbury Crunchies. I love adding sultanas too, though DH isn't keen on them.

Chocolate brownies, gingerbread men, cupcakes, ginger oat cookies and shortbread are all favourites here. Bizarrely DD loves to bake but doesn't like to eat any of it once it's cooked luckily I do

Nigella's chocolate olive oil cake, though made with cheaper oil! Allergy friendly, nothing complicated, though I do the bit with boiling water

I bake a lot with my sister's kids and my little sister (all under 5) Anything that can be decorated. So basic fairy cakes (4442 recipe), gingerbread, biscuits.

I buy the pound land sprinkles and decorations and they have icing in a tube and just let the kids go crazy. Kitchen ends up a disaster but the kids love it.

At Easter we did chocolate nests using shredded wheat and mini eggs.

They also loved doing cheese scones and during them into daft shapes.

I bake a lot with DD but our 'go to' bake is a simple sponge recipe which then may/may not have a twist on it:

6 ozs stork marg or unsalted butter if we are aiming for luxury
4 ozs caster sugar
3 large eggs
6 ozs SR flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
Few drops vanilla extract

Sometimes we do the whole creaming fat with sugar, slowly adding eggs, sifting and then folding in the flower and sometimes we'll just fling everything in the food processor and go for it (all in one method).

The twists? Well I think you can do pretty much anything with a basic sponge recipe so we'll sometimes make Victoria sponge cupcakes- spoon alms mix into a cupcake case, pop a blob of strawberry/raspberry jam in then cover with more mixture.

Or do the same as with the jam but substitute with marmalade, cover the cooled cakes in chocolate buttercream then artily angle a mini Jaffa cake.

Or add a small amount of very concentrated coffee - after cooling first- to the mixture and chuck in some walnut pieces. Then make coffee-flavoured buttercream to pipe onto the top.

I pride myself in knowing the sponge recipe by heart and I'm pretty sure I could knock together a cake/batch of cupcakes without scales too if I needed to.

PS ADORE the Hugless Douglas books!

We love baking here! And eating the produced goods, of course! We love making brownies (v easy recipe from old Good Housekeeping book) and sometimes just add whatever they fancy as a topping or experiment eg marshmallows, bits of other chocolate bars et. We also love flapjacks - so super easy and they can do everything and also choose any fresh/dried fruit to add. Blueberries were a recent delicious addition. And also pancakes - drop scones or crepe style. Last topping was ice cream and maple syrup. Yum. Love baking with them and their creative ideas and they just love eating what they have made! As do we. Win win!

Flour not flower obvs

My DS hates both the noise the mixer makes and chocolate which can limit our baking but we like making muffins (Nigella's) and banana bread (ancient Bero cookbook I learned to bake from as a child!)

Chew-me oat fruit bars

DS is only 2 so hasn't quite got the hang of precise cooking yet. This recipe is really good as its no added sugar and packed full of fruit. It's a bung it all in and stir type recipe so really easy to make with a messy toddler. I can also easily make it gluten free with is great for my restricted diet. Great for lunchboxes or a small afternoon snack.

Recipe is from here
onehandedcooks.com.au/recipe/baby-toddler-food-chew-me-oat-fruit-bars/

Chocolate buns with chocolate on (my helper will clean the bowls for me)

Sausage rolls with homemade sausage meat and pizzas. Biscuits with lots of different toppings to decorate them. Courgette and orange muffins.

Jam 'surprises'. Basic sponge recipe portioned out into fairy cakes then at the end put a teaspoon of jam on the top of each one. As the cakes bake they rise over the jam hiding it. When you bite in you get a delicious jammy taste and no need for icing!

Muffins/cupcakes or flapjacks - very forgiving recipes, in fact muffins are better if the batter is lumpy. Fridge cake is also good, as are gingerbread biscuits and cookies. Nothing requiring any finesse!

Weigh an egg cake, Victoria sponge recipe. My almost 10 yo and her friend made cake pops and cupcakes using the recipe yesterday and then with their 6yo siblings everyone decorated the cakes (and kitchen) with melted chocolate or icing and many, many, many sprinkles!!

We make aqua faba marshmallow (chick pea Water) and layer it on top of some gooey chocolate Brownies.

Mildly toasted it is absolutely delicious. Dd wants to have it instead of birthday cake

I can't cope with trying to follow a recipe with 2 kids "helping" so it has to be something I can make without. We usually make a variation on a basic sponge (weigh eggs, same amount of flour, butter & sugar, spoonful of baking powder, splash of milk) and make it into chocolate, choc chip, lemon or orange drizzle. They mainly enjoy licking the bowl.