Baking With An 18 Month Old
Austin has always shown an interest in cooking and baking. Right from an early age, he was interested in what I was doing in the kitchen. He used to lay in his baby seat and watch when I was making soups and stews. He was also fascinated every time I whisked up eggs.
For his first Christmas, he was bought a play kitchen. Although he was too young to use most of it, he did enjoy mixing things in his play saucepan and frying pan and he loved opening and closing the cupboard doors and putting things inside. I knew that when he was old enough, he would enjoy baking and cooking with Mummy and Daddy.
We decided to try out some simple baking with Austin when he was just under 18 months old. Baking with an 18 month old? You must be mad, I hear you say… I think the trick is to keep the baking quite simple and short and then you’ve got a much better chance at keeping them engaged and enjoying the activity.
For our first baking activity, we decided we would make mince pies. These are very simple to make. Really it’s more of a case of assembling the mince pies and then baking them, but it was a great activity to try out.
I found it easier to do the baking with Austin in his highchair. I suspect with slightly older children, standing on a stool next to the kitchen counter would be ideal, but he might not only fall off the stall, but I also suspect he would wander off, leaving me to finish the baking.
I used ready-rolled pastry for quickness, but I could have easily made pastry and chilled it in the fridge, ready to use.
We used some cutters to cut out the round pastry bases and the tops. Once we had cut out all the ready rolled pastry, I rejoined the bits that were left and showed Austin how to roll out using a small rolling pin. I found that a small fondant rolling pin was ideal for him. It’s small enough that he could handle it easily and it didn’t stick to the dough.
Once we had placed all of our pastry bases in the cake tin, we then filled them with the mincemeat using a teaspoon. This is the part that I thought was most impressive. Austin was concentrating really hard on spooning the mixture into the cases and although it wasn’t perfect, he did a really good job. It’s ideal for helping to develop hand-eye coordination.
We then topped our mince pies and I took care of the baking part. We enjoyed our mince pies after lunch. I think Austin enjoyed making them more than eating them. I think he found them very sweet – he’s not used to such sweet foods. I think he thoroughly enjoyed making mince pies.
We’ve got lots of other ideas for things to make together, but next, I think we’ll make some biscuits. Have you got any suggestions of what’s ideal to make, when baking with an 18 month old? There are some great books about encouraging children to cook and bake or you could try this fancy flapjack recipe. If you are looking for other suggestions on how to keep a toddler entertained, why not create your own toddler busy book with this handy tutorial or try gingerbread playdough?
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