Cooking with a 2 year old

[rebeccaw]

Well, winter drags on and I'm running out of indoor entertainment for 2 year old. Does anyone know any good recipes that we can get stuck into in the kitchen together?

Try making pizza.

The base is very simple - flour, small amount water and oil, mix together until a dough is made - toddlers love this, it's so mucky!
I get my dd to oil a baking tray with a brush.
Roll out the pizza base, and put on tray.

Get you toddler to spreat tomatoe puree, cheese, sweetcorn, tuna, etc on it.

got any eggs and flour and milk, make pancakes and eat as soon as possible.
Lots of mixing and kids love cracking eggs.
google for make simple pancakes - youll find lots of ways to do it.

As long as my ds can help in the kitchen it dosent matter what we make together. he loves to just pour ingredients and help to chop mushrooms with a plastic knife. but his favorite thing to make is cookies or cakes as if i let him he would eat all the dough or batter. And he absolutly loves to be the one to get all the ingredients out of the fridge and off the shelves. And to be given the decision of what to make for dinner, even if only given two choices so he feels he has helped and is quite happy to choose his favorite. one of his favorite cookies to make are:

ALMOND BUTTER COOKIES

1 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. white sugar
2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. almond extract (if you don't like almond you can substitute with vanilla or orange extract)
iceing sugar to dip cookies in

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat together butter and sugar until creamy in large bowl. Add flour, salt and almond extract, stir well. Chill dough for 1 hour. Remove from refrigerator. Pinch about 1 tablespoon of dough and roll in 1 inch ball. Flatten in crisscross pattern using fork dipped in sugar. Press almond in center.
Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove while warm dip into iceing sugar. Cool.

Thanks guys - sounds like I need to get a bit braver about letting him loose to get creative!

Have just made the egg free dairy free chocolate cake with my 2 yr old ds. Would not advise allowing the use of a hand blender! Now have to take a shower and clean the kitchen....and ds . Pizza is excellent to make. What about gingerbread men? ....or for a more "pc" version, people/persons

How about apple and banana crumble? They enjoy getting fingers in and making the crumble topping and can chop the banana with a child's knife while you do the apple.

ds1 loves cooking. To start with he would have his own bowl with some flour and raisins in and he would de 'his' mixing and we would add it to my cake at the end.

I have a set of balance scales and he likes spooning the ingredients in until it starts to tip. Now he is 3 he also gets to press the button on the food processor.

He loved the rolling and cutting involved in mince pies at christmas so we will have to make some jam tarts soon.

He always asks to make choclate muffins - his favourite bowl to lick out.