Ideas for baking with toddler - healthy-ish if possible!

[Cloud10]

Hello,
I've been baking a few things recently with my 2 year old and she loves it (as do I - have looked forward to this for years!). We've done the obvious things - gingerbread people, cookies, cupcakes, cornflake cakes etc, but I'm conscious that these are all really sugary and I'd prefer not to encourage her to eat this stuff too often. So I'm after ideas for fun things we can make together but that are a little less sugary if possible. So far all I can think of are cheese straw or something similar! Any ideas of how we can continue our baking fun with a little less mummy guilt would be much appreciated

Have you seen the 'Gruffalo Crumble and other recipes' book? It has lots of recipes for children to make. My three year old loves making things from it.

Some are cakey things but there are healthy snacks and main meal recipes in there too and you can swap ingredients for things your child likes.

Ooh no I haven't, will look it up. Thankyou!

Just a few that I've seen work well with children- cheese scones, pizzas (can make the base from scratch), savoury muffins, flapjacks, oat bars. Can't wait until DD is abit older to do these kind of activities with her!

Beetroot chocolate cake
But/seed/oat/honey granola bars
Pumpkin pie

Puff pastry tarts? Bit like pizza but you can roll out the pastry and diy toppings.

we like to make oat bars.
mix
cup of flour
cup of oats
half a cup of cut up dried fruit
125g soft butter or spread
splash of water or milk
mix it together so it's sticky
spread on small baking tray and bake at 160 for 20 min or so
cut into squares when still warm

Ella's kitchen do some really good cookbooks designed for cooking for and with your dc.

Lots of mainly healthy and fun receipes for different occasions. I got mine for a few quid from an Amazon reseller, perfect condition - well until we started using it....

These have been successful with my DC:
Nigella's banana bread, using the chocolate option listed below, in How to be a domestic goddess. I've baked it in a 9 in round tin and let the kids pour over hundreds and thousands before baking. Also baked it as muffins. You can use less sugar. No need for icing and cheap to make if you sub veg oil for the melted butter.

Lemon olive oil muffins on the Serious Eats website. I've cut down the sugar many times and the DCs still enjoy them.

What didnt work for me were cakes recipes in a cookbook called "baking with less sugar" by Joanne Chang. The entire family revolted and refused to eat more than the first bite.

Making sausage rolls was a big hit with my 18mo - roll out pastry, fill with sausage meat, roll up and egg wash. Loved the egg washing. Also glazing the ham today was v fun!

Otherwise, I chop and he puts the chopped up veg in the sauce pan. Ditto doing a salad. It's not exactly fancy looking but good for teaching him what to touch and not touch.

Banana bread is good too. Also making smoothies and banana ice cream. If you need something more instant. They pop it into the processor and you press the buttons.