Cooking with toddlers

[ojasastarter]

What (if anything!) do you enjoy cooking with your toddler?

What has the right level of mess/ results and do they benefit from it?

Oh... I would like some ideas for this too.
My DD loves standing on a stool to "help" me cook and I love But I really dislike mess!

I found mixing things easy and relatively low mess. - rice crispy cakes (we did a block in a tray to then cut up later to avoid the excess mess into cupcake cases)
The Christmas cake was also quite successful.

Oh... I would like some ideas for this too.
My DD loves standing on a stool to "help" me cook and I love But I really dislike mess!

I found mixing things easy and relatively low mess. - rice crispy cakes (we did a block in a tray to then cut up later to avoid the excess mess into cupcake cases)
The Christmas cake was also quite successful.

I like toddlers.
But I couldn't eat a whole one

What about scones? Simple and quick and some good "cutting out" too.

Need a big oven for a whole one

Banana pancakes! Two ingredients only - banana and self raising flour. Make sure your bananas are a bit spotty and just softening. Mash them then add flour so it’s a thick batter consistency. Stir it up then fry in pan. Delish!

My kids love the chocolate banana nice cream too! Only 4 ingredients - bananas, cocoa powder, vanilla bean paste and milk.

Freeze chopped bananas overnight. Put in blender with a dessert spoon of cocoa powder, a teaspoon of vanilla and blend. It will go kind of crumbly. Add a dash of milk then blend again and it is just like real ice cream. It seriously fools my brain. This makes my whole family so so happy!

I’m sure if you google you can find exact measurements but I generally make these on the fly and they almost never go wrong.

Christmas .

Mini pizzas made with pitta bread or something similar isn't too messy.

Pancakes are always a hit here.

If they're old enough to stand safely on a stool, putting mixing bowl in sink helps contain the mess when mixing

Put a wet dishcloth under bowl in sink to stop it wobbling so much

Some great ideas already

Particularly keen on the pitta pizzas idea!

what I found really hepful was have them help with it all.so when your cooking evening meal aks if they can help mummy.can they choose a good onion to go in spag bol.fetch the milk.mix the butter for the pastry. and half the time they also are watching what ur doing,askig to stir and picking things up or at least getting around cooing which helps in the future.they are being introduced to cooking from an early age which see no end of benefits for the future and seeing how good family cooking is done and can be done.nd they absorb so much.even if the can slice yet or do much,telling them what ur doing into the spag bowl.or asking them to pick the best looking veggies.asking what they think comes next or woul be tasty.
naan pizzas
fairy cakes
pasta bakes.and they love making them in muffins tins so individual mac and cheese into muffin wholes
jam tarts
salami and cheese pastry pinweels.
quesadillas
ham and cheese muffins.
pastry tray bake
make there own pitta or flatbread
make ur own burgers.
fishcakes
sausage rolls
cheesy biscuits
flapjacks

Muffins are a big hit here. I accepted it would be messy (it was; we started when DD was 18mo). She loved exploring the different textures - muffins have a wet mix and a dry mix; I was happy for her to eat the wet mix, which includes raw egg.

I would then get her to watch something while I cleared up!

Mine like making anything from I Can Cook :

www.bbc.co.uk/food/programmes/b00w1ddl