Cooking Toddlers

[AntoinetteCosway]

...now that I've got your attention, , does anyone have any very easy baking recipes I could do with my DD? She's 19MO and is into mixing things at the moment. I'm trying to think of recipes that aren't too sloppy, so there's a slightly smaller chance of it flying all over the kitchen, and similarly that has some exciting bits to put in but not things that will make toooooo much of a mess.

Or should I just cover the walls in plastic tablecloths and get messy with brownies?

Cornflake Cakes / Rice crispie cakes , not to much mess & can add allsorts on top

I sometimes do fairy cakes with a 1 egg sponge mix. Mine likes whisking the egg, mixing it altogether and putting it into cake cases. A 1 egg mix means I'm not too twitchy if things go flying and then you can get creative (or not) with decorating.

Rocky road or fridge cake? Can add lots of different bits...

All good ideas, thanks! What is fridge cake though?

I do get my toddler involved in all my baking, but tbh unless I have a long time in which to coax and cajole and tidy up, I tend to just give her some flour and sugar, then every now and then add a new random ingredient to keep her interest (vegetable oil! Raisins! Butter!) The resulting mess is inedible but is contained to one bowl at least and I can get my own cooking done... I call it decoy baking!

fridge cake 1 here
fridge cake 2 here
pizza funny faces from the lovely eric!
gingerbread men/people/cats/dogs/flowers ... whatever cutters you have
mumsnet recipe

Any of these any good... I can linky to others ...

Ok, fridge cakes look amazing. I also love the idea of decoy baking!

Nigella's rocky road is pure badness www.nigella.com/recipes/view/rocky-road-crunch-bars-25 but HIGHLY recommended

I made these banana banana biscuits with my daughter when she was around that age. No refined sugar so healthy too...

I've just made bread and DS mixed up the yeast and flour, and then helped to knead the dough. He's 16 months.

My DS has a VERY short attention span when it comes to cooking so these are really quick ones...

Mars bar rice krispie cakes - 3 Mars bars, 3oz of butter and 3oz of rice krispies or that ratio.

Mini jam tarts - no mixing but I'm guessing she'll probably enjoy using the pastry cutters too and eating jam out of a jar

These are great, thank you. She can't have bananas but I might make those ones just for me...

I started with shortbread as it is very easy and she liked rolling the dough and cutting the biscuit shapes out.

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortbread_1290

I started baking with DD before she was 1.

She was allowed to whisk the egg with a fork in a smaller bowl, shake the sieve to get flour into a large bowl directly underneath, use a wooden spoon to then mix the flour/baking powder/cocoa/spices (whatever dry bits involved) together evenly, make and use water icing. And lick spoons (only got eggy ones after she was about 2).

I tended to do small batches of mix when she was involved. Things like fairy cakes, brownies, cookies are all favourites here, and the odd attempt at rice crispie type buns (but the creche does those a lot so I am off the hook luckily!!).

At age 7, she now occasionally makes a chocolate cake or cookie dough all by herself with a wooden spoon (or sometimes with me controlling the Kenwood for proper fluffly cake mix), with the only thing I have to do is the oven. Somewhat messy, but she has to clean kitchen as well.

Get her an apron, get yourself some "blinkering" glasses, and enjoy!!

carrot cake
cheese straws/shapes
gingerbread

I choose things I like to eat / make and then just include the toddler with varying degrees of success. Scones have been good and simple both cheese and fruit - has the rolling and cutting aswell as the mixing.

Thanks for these ideas all. I think I was thinking about it with too much of a 'grown up' head on in terms of what she could successfully do, when actually it just needs to be fun and messy!

Muffins are easy to cook with toddlers because it gets mixed in one bowl.

I made pizzas with ds yesterday, He helped make the dough and then later he helped put the toppings on that he liked so I had a plate of cut up veg, chicken and grated cheese for him to chose from.