Baking with kids is fun and teaches them creativity and math skills. Photo: DANIEL BOCKWOLDT/dpa
Strap on your apron and wipe off the kitchen surfaces. It’s the time of year where many of us bake festive cookies to give to friends and relatives – or eat ourselves.
If you have kids who are eager to help, then bear in mind that the journey is always the destination. Here’s how to make baking as enjoyable as possible for the little ones.
Instructions for baking cookies with children
Three important things to prepare:
> Time management: Allow plenty of time! An hour between appointments won’t work. If you’re pressed for time, the project will fail, says Christina Bauer, a farmer in Goriach, Austria, and author of a book about baking with children.
Nutritionist Dagmar von Cramm also warns, “Please don’t do anything else at the same time!”
> Atmosphere: Creating a good atmosphere is a must: “Christmas music makes it much easier,” says Christiane Kuhrt, author of Christmas Made Easy – Yummy.
> How long children can keep baking cookies: Don’t choose more than one or two recipes. “If there are more, it’s no longer fun,” says Bauer. “Preschoolers can last a maximum of 30 minutes – schoolchildren longer,” says von Cramm, of her rule of thumb.
Kuhrt suggests you spread Christmas baking over two days. Bake cookies on the first day and decorate them on the second. “Otherwise, you’ll quickly find yourself alone in the kitchen,” she says.
Three tips for more baking fun with children
> Children decide what to bake: Bauer advises letting the little ones choose the recipes beforehand. For baking blogger Kathrin Runge, the right recipes are those that can be prepared in a relatively short time and don’t need to stay in the oven for too long. These include butter cookies and coconut macaroons, for example.
> Children like to dress up: Aprons are good for protecting clothes. And they’re fun. “Little bakers love having their own long aprons. You can also tie a large tea towel around them, for example, then they look like real bakers or chefs,” says Runge.
> Separate utensils for children: “Every child needs their own wooden board and a small rolling pin, for example,” says Runge. Special accessories such as children’s baking tins are nice, “but in my opinion not really necessary.”
What tasks are suitable for children when baking biscuits?
Children can help with these fun – and crucial – four activities:
1. Weighing
2. Snacking
3. Cutting out
4. Decorating
When it comes to baking with children, the journey is always the destination. Photo: Freepik
Get all the ingredients ready
Children want to get started right away. So it’s a good idea to have all the ingredients ready before you begin. “If you start gathering ingredients now, you’ll cause the first big disappointment,” says Bauer. This includes sealed packages: “They should already be open.”
Now you can start weighing the ingredients, an exciting activity for children which they really enjoy.
> Start with the eggs: All the ingredients are weighed. The mixing bowl is ready. If eggs are part of the recipe, start with them. Children aged four to five can separate the egg whites from the yolks. If some of the shell slips in, it’s easy enough to fish it out.
> Flat dough sheet instead of a large ball: All the ingredients have been kneaded into a dough. Instead of a large ball, Kuhrt says form a finger- thick sheet from the dough and place it in the refrigerator. “This can then easily be rolled out between two sheets of cling film or baking paper. This prevents more flour from being added, which only makes the dough hard and crumbly.”
> Alternatively, knead the dough yourself: Von Cramm and Kuhrt recommend preparing the dough yourself the day beforehand. Kuhrt would also mix the icing for decorating without the children – but only shortly before you need to use it.
“Because stirring until the desired consistency is achieved could take too long for children,” says Kuhrt. If you don’t have time for this, you can also use icing from a bag. Children don’t like hearing the phrase: “Wait, it’s not ready yet!”
Here are some even more taboo phrases when baking cookies with kids:
“Leave it, I’ll do it.”
“Wait, not yet.”
“Don’t use too many sprinkles.”
> Snacking is allowed: Licking the bowl must be allowed. This is the rule in Christiane Bauer’s bakery, where she emphasises the importance of using very fresh ingredients.
Von Cramm suggests using a special snack dough made without eggs (due to the risk of salmonella) as baking without snacking is no fun, in her view.
> Individuality before beauty: When cutting out and decorating cookies, don’t expect what you make to win a beauty contest. When baking with children, Bauer’s motto is, “Creativity before beauty.”
Runge also advises you to stay calm, be patient and give lots of praise – even if something didn’t turn out quite right.
Von Cramm also warns against excessive ambition. “Children’s biscuits don’t have to be perfect.” In the end, every child should get their own tin for “their” biscuits.
Five tips for greater safety when baking cookies
Adults can easily take a baking tray out of the hot oven, brush hot chocolate coating onto a cake or chop dried fruit into small pieces. “Unfortunately, with children, the whole thing can quickly go wrong,” warns Runge.
Runge recommends talking to children about potential dangers, make agreements, set a good example and consider installing protective devices on the hob and oven.
Most importantly, if the children are still small, always stay with them in the kitchen! “Not only for safety reasons – it’s so much fun to watch the little ones making dough, decorating and snacking,” says Runge.
How to create wonderful memories
Remember to take photos of the children baking cookies.
After all, snapshot of little bakers in action could be great in your Christmas card.
“It’s a lovely memory and you can see how the children grow and become more independent from Christmas to Christmas,” says Kuhrt. – dpa
