Stir, Bake And Mix Up Memorable Moments In The Kitchen For Your Young Bakers
No matter the cooking task at hand-whether it’s rolling dough or mixing ingredients – getting children more involved in the kitchen is a great way to begin new traditions and spend good, quality time as a family.
From baking cookies to stirring up the pudding, introducing children to the joys of cooking begins with exciting, simple recipes.
Fun and easy recipes teach cooking basics and inspire creativity in your little cooks.
In addition to using trouble-free recipes, here are a few more tips for getting children more involved in the kitchen and become little chefs in your kitchen.
• Unveil the inner chef. Teach the basic cooking fundamentals by allowing kids to measure ingredients, season recipes or brush marinade on pork chops or chicken before grilling, baking or sauteing.
• Sticky, drippy and just plain icky. Avoid unnecessary messes and spills by rinsing and stacking used dishes in the sink as you cook, and storing ingredients away after using.
• No boo-boos. Ensure safety by using blunt scissors, plastic knives or serrated dinner knives when slicing meats, fruits and vegetables.
• Keep it simple. Remember that your little ones have short attention spans and lose interest quickly. Prepare easy recipes such as the one that follows for Alphabet Cookies.
Kids will love using the cookie cutters, as well as frosting and decorating each letter with tube icing and colourful candy sprinkles.
Look for more kid-friendly recipes and cooking tips in many recipe ebooks, you can try the one at this link.
Alphabet Cookies
(Makes about 2 dozen cookies)
All-purpose flour
1 package (18 ounces) Nestl Toll House Refrigerated Mini Sugar Cookie Bar Dough
3-inch alphabet cookie cutters
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup Strawberry Flavor Nesquik Syrup
1 to 2 tablespoons water
Small tubes decorator icing
Decorator candies
Preheat oven to 325 F. Sprinkle flour over cutting board or kitchen work surface. Break off two rows of cookie dough. Roll out dough to about 1/8-inch thickness, using additional flour as needed to prevent sticking. Press cookie cutters into the dough and transfer letters to ungreased baking sheets with a spatula.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Combine sugar, Nesquik and water in a medium bowl; beat with a whisk or hand-held mixer until smooth. Spread icing over cookies. Allow icing to dry before adding any additional decorations.
Making cookies together is a recipe for family fun and making memorable moments with your kids.
Bake Up Some Cookies For Family Fun with Your Little Bakers
There are lots of reasons parents are baking with their little helpers these days. The delicious result is of course on the list. But more importantly, baking with children is a great way to spend time with them and to teach them things at the same time you’re all having fun.
Baking cookies with any or all of your kids is a naturally fun activity. Cookies are portable, sweet and fun to make. They can be made in stages if time is tight-prepare the dough in the evening and bake them the next morning. Older children can read the recipe and direct adults on what steps to take. Small children can roll the dough into balls and flatten it with a fork, similar to making peanut butter cookies. There’s enough fun to go around for everyone.
What makes your cookies even better is to add corn starch to the dough. In fact, many recipes for baked goods from the early 20th century used corn starch in conjunction with flour. Bakers found very early on that corn starch gave biscuits, muffins, cakes, shortcakes, pie crusts and most notably cookies a finer texture and more tender crumb when compared to recipes using flour alone. Recipe books produced then by the experts at Argo and Kingsford’s Corn Starch bear this out. In fact, Argo, established in 1892, has offered its customers cookie recipes since its very early years.
Here’s a recipe for Lemon Shortbread Cookies that’s simple and delicious and should make for a batch of family fun. If you do want other recipes, check this link.
Lemon Shortbread Cookies
11/3 cups Argo or Kingsford’s Corn Starch
2 cups butter or margarine
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
Makes six dozen
Preheat the oven to 350F. In a large bowl, beat butter until softened. Add powdered sugar, beat until well combined. Add lemon peel and vanilla; beat well. In a medium bowl, stir together flour and corn starch; add to mixture and beat well.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls (kids will love this). Place on ungreased cookie sheets. Press the tines of a fork atop each ball to make the subtle design. Bake for about 15 minutes or until bottoms is lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.
Hope your young bakers enjoyed the process of preparing them as well as tasting them. So Bon Appetite!
Cooking with kids is not just about ingredients, recipes, and cooking. It’s about harnessing imagination, empowerment, and creativity.
Guy Fieri
Hope you have enjoyed some of the innovative thinking articles. You can read other interesting tips for you and your kids, please go to our Kids Universe website.