Our favourite festive of the year is here once again! This also means it is time isaac meet up with his uncle C for their annual baking session because we believe handmade gifts are the best. 3rd year in a row now and he has yet to get over his uneasiness of getting hands dirty.
This year, they baked something alot easier than last year’s rainbow loaf cake – White chocolate cranberry cookies.
Kneading the dough to shape his cookies Cookies ready to go into the ovenSee how the cookies have expanded?
We put the cookies in a pretty box and it is nice enough to be given away. What do you think?
As isaac always says ‘sharing is caring’, here is the recipe for the cookies.
For those who have little picky eaters at home, you are not alone. Our little one is quite consistent with his preference of food. Daily meals consist of either porridge or rice accompanied by soup and a steamed dish. Not that we taught him to eat this way, it is just the way he is. Yes, like an old man, I know. How then do we encourage him to try something out of the ordinary (for him at least)?
We let him help out with preparing his own meal.
This may seem like a simple action but the result of it is satisfying. That sense of pride Isaac had in preparing his own meal was really beyond words. It was like how he prepared his own burger when we visited Kidzania. He felt that his burger tasted nicer than the other burgers he had eaten before. This is really just the same logic. That being said, it really depends how ready your child is and how comfortable you are with letting them help. If you are afraid of letting your child near the stove, you can let them help with the washing of rice/noodles.
I picked a simple to cook recipe so there is less mess – Spaghetti with meatballs. I did not let him help with the frying in case the oil splattered onto him. This was how it went after I stir fried the beef balls and onions.
We prepared the tomato sauce with beef balls Washed the spaghetti Put the spaghetti to boil
After which, I cooked the spaghetti in the sauce for a bit so it can soak up the flavour of the sauce.
Someone was so proud of the spaghetti he had helped with and finished the whole portion that was given to him. He even asked that we saved some of his cooking for daddy. 🙂
When I asked him what shall we have for lunch tomorrow, he answered “Spaghetti and meatballs because I can cook it and it is so yummy in my tummy!”.
The first time Isaac baked was Christmas 2017 at his Uncle Cornelius’ place. In the blink of an eye, a year went by and we were invited to go over to bake again. In fact, I think it is a great idea to make this our yearly tradition.
In my opinion, baking / cooking is a valuable skill for children to pick up because there are so many things they can learn from this.
Reading – They will realise that they have to know how to read so they can follow the recipe.
Numbers – Knowing how many eggs are required, how much batter, how much sugar, how to read the weighing scale in order to produce what he wants to create
Encourages creativity – They can decide what flavour or colour their bakes are. Decorating their cakes / packaging of their cookies is can also be fun for them.
Importance of precision – They will come to learn that how good their bakes taste is highly dependant on how precise they are with the addition of their ingredients. eg, too much sugar – cake will be too sweet.
Although he is only 3, I think this a great indoor activity to do with him especially since he does not like going out of the house.
This year, we had fun baking Rainbow Loaf Cake and Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies. Not so much the cookies though, since Isaac did not really like getting his hands sticky. Here are some of the photos I captured while he baked.
chocolate chip cookies
He enjoyed watching the ingredients get mixed up in the mixer
He decided on the colours he would like to see on his Rainbow Loaf
Blue, Pink, Yellow, Green, Purple were his chosen colours
placing the different colours together before putting it into the oven. see how much blue he uses? That is his favourite colour for sure.
There, his Rainbow Loaf!
All the bakes that day
As he made the Rainbow Loaf, he told me how sure he was his daddy was going to love the cake. 🙂 We gave away the cookies and rainbow cakes to family and close friends and everyone said how pretty the loaf is and how delicious they tasted (credits to his Uncle Cornelius).
We cannot wait to bake again soon!
If you would like to try baking the rainbow loaf you can refer to the recipe below.
225g unsalted French butter
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
1/4 cup full fat natural yoghurt
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
235g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
As much colour gel as you desire
Mix everything (except the colouring) in a stand mixer on medium speed until batter is just combined. Split batter evenly into several bowls and colour them accordingly. Decant batter into a greased and lined loaf tin and marble the colours together. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 35 to 40mins. Let cool completely before slicing.
