The Benefits of Cooking with Your Child

Cooking is such a wonderful bonding experience to have with your child! 

It is a fantastic way for your child to be exposed to early concepts of maths and science as well as create essential skills such as reading, following instructions, problem-solving and developing creativity! 

When children experience cooking at an early age, it also gives them a sense of independence and helps them to develop greater fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and encourages them to eat healthily!  

These are the top valuable benefits of cooking with your children 

1. Builds Confidence
   Giving your children a bit of freedom in the kitchen will nurture your child’s self-esteem, confidence, and sense of self-worth.  
2. Physical Development
   Stirring, measuring, rolling, squeezing and spreading are just a few of the kitchen tasks that allow young children to develop their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills. 
3. Communication skills
   As you cook with your child, you will be discussing what you are doing, giving each other instructions and making observations of each other. It is such a good way to have meaningful and intentional discussions with your children. 
4. A great sensory experience
   Cooking is such a good way to engage all your child’s senses. Let them immerse themselves in this ultimate sensory experience, let them dig their (clean) hands into the dough, smell and taste all the safe ingredients you are using and let them get messy! 
5. Build relationships
   A kitchen is a great place for you to spend quality time with your children. It is also a great environment for siblings to cooperate, communicate, building stronger relationships. 
6. Creativity
   Cooking can be about following a rigid set of instructions, but it can also be about seeing what happens! Try experimenting with different ingredients, taste, flavours, and quantities and let your child make plenty of decisions during the process. 
7. Promotes cooperation and sharing
   This one is particularly true when you are cooking with more than one child. While cooking, your children will have a fantastic opportunity to practice sharing and cooperation. Taking turns mixing, cracking one egg each, having one child pour the milk in while the other pours the melted butter, etc are all good examples of implementing this skill while cooking.  
8. Mathematics skills
   Counting, addition, multiplication, ratios, fractions, measurements, timing etc are a fundamental part of cooking. Measuring and combining ingredients and changing recipes are all excellent real-life application of mathematics and learning trial and error. 

These skills also work hand in hand for every day living such as problem-solving, fine motor skills and communication! 

With the school holidays upon us, here are my top picks for some fabulous summer treats you and your children will love making together! 

Banana Pikelets  

Ingredients 

• 2 cups self-rising flour 
• 1 pinch salt 
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• 1 1/2 tbs butter melted 
• 2 eggs beaten 
• 1 1/2 cups milk 
• 2 bananas mashed  

Method 

1. Sift self-raising flour and salt into a bowl. 
2. Whisk in sugar, butter, eggs and milk until smooth. 
3. Add mashed bananas and stir the mixture well. 
4. Heat a frying pan with a little oil or butter and pour batter to form small circles. 
5. When pikelets bubble on top, flip and cook the other side until brown
   

Sometimes I also like to chop up some strawberries and blueberries then drizzle some honey on top or if feeling cheeky add some Nutella.

Sausage Rolls 

Ingredients 

• 500g sausage mince 
• 1/2 large onion, diced 
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce 
• salt, pepper 
• 3 slices puff pastry, cut into halves 
• egg wash 

Method 

1. Mix all the ingredients. 
2. Cut three sheets of pastry in half and place 1/6 of the mixture on each half. 
3. Form a long sausage shape down the middle of each half of the pastry, brush the long edge with egg wash and roll up so that the seam is on the bottom side. 
4. Cut into any desired size (we did four sausage rolls per row). You can do party sausage rolls or big ones. 
5. Brush each sausage roll with additional egg wash and place on a lined baking tray. 
6. For the oven: Bake for 10-15 minutes at 160°C fan-forced (or 180°C) until puffed up and golden. 

For the Air fryer families: Preheat your Air fryer to 180°C for 10 minutes. Cook the sausage rolls for 10-15 minutes until puffed up and golden.

Breakfast Burrito 

Ingredients 

• 3 tbs olive oil 
• 500 g potatoes (cubed) 
• 1 onion (diced) 
• 3 rashers bacon (chopped) 
• 6 eggs 
• 1/4 cup parsley (chopped) 
• 1 cup salsa 
• 8 tortillas 

Method 

1. In a large frying pan, heat the oil and cook the potatoes for about 10 minutes until golden and cooked through. 
2. Add onion and bacon. Cook until the onion is translucent. 
3. Crack the eggs over the pan and scramble until the eggs are cooked. 
4. Toss in parsley. Serve egg and potato mixture with salsa sauce, wrapped in warmed tortillas.

 

Perfect for on-the-go meals! So get cooking!