Almost weekly, my youngest son asks me to bake him cookies. Which, in a lovely domestic world where his mama would do it with joy, it can work.
But in our case, 2 things are going on:
- I hate cooking and baking
- Every time I do bake, I BURN the cookies. (TRUE STORY)
With everything, there is always a solution. For one, my son told me, ‘Mama, I can learn how to make them.’ Secondly, I didn’t want to look like a totally useless mama, so I came up with a plan. I decided to take a cookie baking class with my kid and here’s the whole experience!
Baking Class to Do Together With my Kid
The best way for your child to be self-sufficient is to show them how. And when you can’t show them how, you hire an excellent teacher. And that’s exactly what I did. Searching for the best baking teacher, that specialized in working with kids, created a new problem for us.
Now my son wants to bake cookies ALL.THE.TIME! But I’ll take the problem over burning each cookie tray.
Cookie Recipes Each Child Can Do On Their Own
I took advantage of this class. It wasn’t a send him on his way kind of experience. But a chance to bond and do things together. When we arrived at our teacher’s house, she was forewarned of why we are taking the class. And she totally took over. She made him the star. I participated as the photographer and his taster. But the most important part of it all, is the cookies we’ll be making.
The class was two hours, just the right amount of time to keep a kid excited without them losing their concentration. But the reward was really what kept them involved.
Our reward was two-fold:
- 4 ingredient chocolate chip cookies
- Butter cookies
What kid can say no to chocolate chip cookies? They were easy to make and can be easily reproduced at home. And what HUMAN can say no to butter? So both of her choices for what he learned were huge hits. We’re so inspired that we are even thinking of trying something new such as PB fudge next time. Easy to make, but totally delicious!
Step-by-Step Baking Process for Kids
Everything starts with being able to do it for yourself. It doesn’t matter the age if you show the kid how to get their own ingredients. How to measure. How to mix. They feel empowered. I loved her style because she wasn’t standing over the hit, but showing him by example. While he was doing his batch, she was doing hers.
This way, when it was time to bake the cookies, we had an entire batch from her and ours, so when we left, we had enough dough and cookies that lasted us for the next 3 weeks.
The end result – my son loves baking cookies. And I look like a great mama because I make sure to always have the ingredients in the house for him to make them whenever he wants.
