Cooking with Toddlers....

[flamesparrow]

I have a 21 month old who loves "helping" mummy... what do you suggest I can make with her (rather than my current method of giving her flour to play in!!!)

Fruit crumble - my dd loves mixing the crumble up with her hands.

She also enjoys cracking eggs on the side of the jar, and then mummy helps to poor them in!! Then she whisks the egg for me whilst i get on with the rest of the cooking.

We often cook, biscuits/fairy cakes. Or make desserts like crumble, or jelly or trifle.

She always has to be involved when i'm cooking, so i sit her at one end of the worksurface with something to stir while i do the rest of the cooking.

She did a fantastic job of cutting mushrooms for me the other day! With one of her little knives of course. And she likes to butter bread or toast also.

Rice crispie cakes (mix with choc and put into cases) oh and lick the bowl!!!
Fairy cakes/biscuits and then decorate with icing and sweeties...messy but fun!!

Pizzas always go down well here. I either use an Asda pizza base mix or make some dough in my breadmaker. Then give them some each to roll out & bowls of different toppings. They love eating what they've made themselves.

Ds (23 months) likes to make anything that involves using an electric mixer as he loves to hold it! Pavlovas are the current favourite (not that he's tasted the result, poor lamb!) because they involve lots of mixing.

Scones. Rubbing butter into flour is toddler heaven, as it being given a bit of dough to shape and play with.

Not being a big biscuit eater, it's not something I do often, but on a wet weekend a lot of entertainment can be got out of rolling biscuit dough, choosing and sometimes using biscuit cutters, then later on icing and decorating the finished product.

Eggy bread. Both mixing the egg and dipping the bread in the mixture are toddler jobs.

And finally...the staple of the sluglet's diet, cheesy potato. She holds the grater while I grate the cheese. I mash it together with a fork (while she eats bits of the grated cheese) and she 'finishes it off'. i.e. slaps the fork in the bowl a few times and announces it's OK now before shoving a great big lump of it in her mouth.