Baking with young kids - where to start?

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I'm pretty much new to baking but my little ones (1 boy, 1 girl) are really keen - I'm wondering where to start? Does anyone have any tips, recommendations (recipes, kit etc) or general feedback/things to aviod that could help me?

I would love to hear what you all think! X

You need extra small bakeware (you can get baking sets for kids) so you can let the kids have more free rein without worrying about all the ingredients you are wasting.

Start with easy things - flapjacks, cupcakes.

Don't stress the mess and resist the urge to help them too much :o

I think the BBC good food website has a section on baking with children.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/kids-baking

We make cheese scones all the time. Easy, not too much sugar and we make little ones so great for kids (and me) to eat!

The bbc recipe is the best we've tried.

Depending on how little they are you can start super easy. My neice is 1 and cant stand up yet, but she loves to spread glace icing on pre-made fairy cakes and put sprinkles on.

I always found muffins the best to start with as the ingredients just need stirring together rather than having to make sure it is mixed properly. Happy Baking, as everyone is older in our house now, they all just want the end result of eating the cakes (although this does make it less messy)

Thanks ladies! This is really helpful, -will give it a shot.

Banana bread is good because they can peel & mash the bananas before mixing in everything else.

Melted chocolate and rice crispies.

I do cupcakes and gingerbread men / shapes (good if they are used to play doh). They usually enjoy the decorating more than the mixture mixing, and can be really creative!

I have a few baking books but you can just follow simple recipes for the above things.

The CBeebies 'I can cook' book is good for encouraging more savoury cooking too

We used the cupcake kits from sainsburys they are so easy and with fun decorations.

Rock cakes are a favourite here. DS gets to 'tickle' the mixture and it's a v simple recipe so done quite quickly which is good for my nerves and his attention span

Another vote for
The Katie I can cook books, simple
Instructions that are child friendly and mine have made cannelloni, chicken filo pie etc from it which is a change from just making cakes!!

Kids can also do things like assemble a salad, chop
Mushrooms with a normal table knife, make crumble,

Biscuits are good too with some fun shaped cutters. For a really quick result you can use ready rolled pastry instead of biscuit dough or make the dough in advance.

We bake a lot - victoria sponge, Mary Berry's vanilla cupcakes, flap jacks, Baking Mad's mini chewy chocolate brownies. Oh and Jam tarts are good!

DS also loves "painting" egg washing pastry on pies and chopping soft veg such as mushrooms.

Good luck!

I started off giving ds his own bowl with few ingredients in(sugar,bit of flour, raisins or whatever) to "mix" eat
Get all the ingredients out before you get them to the table and keep them out of reach. We do baking at the dining table. I find the mess a bit stressful so it needs to be organized!
We make fairy cakes,chocolate fairy cakes and banana muffins quite a lot.

Weighing the ingredients out beforehand and using a recipe that is just "mix everything together" keeps it simple.

Icing biscuits / cakes is a firm favourite here too.

We make cakes that require eggs to be separated and the whites whisked up - it works okay because dd mixes everything else while I whisk the eggs, then she carefully folds them in, because it's different to mixing she doesn't get bored. She's 3 tho, we couldn't have done this a year ago!

Always allow double the time you think it will take. Make sure you know how to do the recipe before hand.

I disagree with using small items of bakeware. I think it far more meaningful for a child to be able to bake a cake that several people can eat. Use a 6" Sponge tin rather than a 9", by all means, but don't go down to 4". Two dozen fairy cakes is fine, bur it is not worth all the hassle to only bake four. Much better to leave some so siblings/Dad can eat some when they get home. Isn't it more fulfilling for a toddler to hear that they have baked a wonderful cake than to be the only one who has tasted what they have baked? OK, you may need to be economical with the truth, but you would be anyway, even if your Sister-in-Law served up something.

Do you find it easy to keep DS engaged for the whole session - i've had no issues with my girl, but DS struggles after only five mins (despite his enthusiasm before hand). Tips would be great. x