In the kitchen with little time, little money and little people
It’s St Patrick’s Day today, so what better time to have children in the kitchen baking. This Irish soda bread recipe is so simple, my 9-year-old does it completely on her own – though I am on standby to make sure the hot baking tray doesn’t end up on a meltable surface afterwards! You should know, however, that there are endless recipes for ‘proper’ Irish soda bread – probably as many as there are mother’s making it!
Continue reading “St Patrick’s Day Soda Bread Recipe Cards For Kids”
I have a little video of my 8 year old as a 2 year old, making rock cakes of some or other description from a children’s program. I was heavily pregnant with her little sister, and as a mama of two, didn’t have as much time, energy or inclination to help her in the kitchen.
In recent months, she’s been really keen to get involved in the cooking again, and she’s been watching old episodes of Masterchef Australia with her dad most weekends. She’s decided she desperately wants to go on Junior Masterchef next. While I’m not convinced by that one, I decided that I wanted to help her become a confident little chef.
My girls are home educated, and we often learn on ‘themes’ – recently we were learning about Amelia Earhart, and at the moment we’re learning about Frida Kahlo, which involves learning about Mexico, so we included some (fairly simple) Mexican recipes in the ‘lesson plan’. Rather than me making the food to go with the theme, I’ve started making recipe cards that she can use to make the recipe all on her own.
Basically, these recipe cards are regular recipes, but written simply, with less words and in some cases, less faff than their originals.
The recipes also exclude things that I know my kids won’t eat – for example chillies – or substitutions where I think it’ll suit them better or just simplify the recipe.
Recipe Cards for Kids assume that a parent or someone with some kitchen know-how will be helping, so if it’s important to you, make sure your kitchenista knows to only start cooking when you’re with them.
The idea with the recipe cards is that they are printed, cut out, laminated, hole punched and attached to a key ring. This way they’re protected from splatters and are ready and available for next time. Each recipe is tested by my 8 year old before it’s shared, and she always lets me know if something’s not clear, but feel free to let me know if there’s something I missed!
If you aren’t so keen on the cut out/laminate/hole punch routine, you can always just print them off and use them as is. She normally gets to test it that way first anyway, and her second go will be from the recipe cards as you see them here.
While I have, and love, my Thermomix, and my kids can and do use it too, I think it’s really important that they learn the basics of cooking first, so while the recipe cards use the Thermomix as a ‘food processor’, they still whip and whisk and stir and mix by hand, so these recipe cards don’t require a Thermomix.
Also, we’re based in the UK, and we are Thermomix owners, and I learned to read recipes in the South African way – metric – so our recipes use grams and mls, but also cups and teaspoons (5ml) and tablespoons (15ml). You can always Google the conversions and add them to the cards before you laminate them. It’s great to be able to teach kids to use a variety of measuring systems, as it opens up a world of recipes to them!
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We love kitchen gadgets around here, even if they are just for kids in the kitchen, so we were excited to try the ChillFactor Frozen Milkshake Maker – a cup with a handle and blades to turn any milky drink into a milkshake in just minutes.The Milkshake Maker consists of five parts – the cup, the cooling pouch, the lid and blades and the washer (to prevent leaks). There’s also a spoon – slash – straw to drink or eat with.
Assembly is simple. Just pop the cooling bag inside, place the washer above and screw the lid with the blades in place. Pop the Milkshake Maker in the freezer for 4 – 6 hours, or overnight, and you’re good to go.
When you’re ready to make your first milkshake, simply open it up, pour the milk in, and close it up again. Stir for about 30 seconds, then – making sure the straw lid is closed – shake it a little. Apparently, this makes it more bubbly. Then you can spin it around for another minute or so, and you’re ready to eat!
Our favourite “recipe” so far is, unsurprisingly, a chocolate milkshake:
I think this milkshake maker is a huge improvement on the slushie maker we already have – it’s easier to do and I like the end result better too – although I haven’t tried it with non-dairy products.
If I could have an improvement on it, I’d want to be able to just freeze the cooling pouch to save space in the freezer, but I’m not sure if that would work – there’s nothing on the packaging to say you can’t but I suspect it could damage it, so maybe we’ll not try it.
Overall, the ChillFactor Milkshake Maker is a fun bit of kit that the kids love to get involved with. It may be making it’s way to the cupboard now for the next few months, but will be pulled back into service as soon as spring arrives again.
The ChillFactor Milkshake Maker is available from Character-Online for £9.99.
I’m not really sure why I feel like I should apologise for loving the Disney Cakes and Sweets series? Is it because it’s Disney? Or because it’s sugary cakes and sweets? Who knows, but what I do know is that I’m not even sorry. I’ve been slotting our new arrivals into the accompanied binder today, and I am excited, not only to bake and make with my four year old, the way we used to before her sister was born, but also to develop and grow my own baking – and more specifically decorating – skills.
The first recipe we made from Cakes and Sweets were Minnie’s fruity chocolate chunks. We pretty much changed everything in the recipe, but hear me out. It was so good, we made it again and again.
The original recipe calls for white chocolate (yuk! sorry, but no). It also called for freeze-dried raspberries which we didn’t have on hand, so we used mixed peel instead, and it called for pistachio nuts, which again, I didn’t have, so we used hazelnuts instead. I’m sure their version would be fine, but ours was awesome!
We’ll be putting some of these in jars with a ribbon or two for Christmas gifts. I reckon it beats a box of bought chocolates hands down. This is also a brilliant recipe for children to help with too.
Issue 1 also contains Giant Mickey Mouse cookies with a cutter, Honey cupcakes, marshmallow pillows, 101 Dalmations cake, passionfruit tarts, and part one of how to build a fairytale castle.
I’m all about the healthy. We experiment with raw food, drink water kefir, and cook from scratch. I even make my own butter. But to be great 80% of the time, we allow ourselves a break 20% of the time. For the next while, we’ll share recipes from the Disney Cakes and Sweets magazine series. They are not healthy. The name kind of gives it away. But that’s okay. Sometimes we adjust the recipes a little to fit in better with our style, and sometimes I use a Thermomix instead of following the directions. As part of a balanced diet, we hope you ‘ll join us. We’ll have fun!
(If you prefer completely raw, healthy, but still delicious snacks, have a look at Bliss Balls For Beginners)