Baking with Children: How to Support Your Children While Baking

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Baking with children is a truly wonderful pastime. It not only results in delicious baked goods, but also supports little cake bakers and their development along the way—the icing on the cake when baking with children, so to speak…

“That’s far too stressful for me!”, “Why don’t you bake when they’re sleeping?”, “I don’t feel like dealing with that mess”… These are just a few of the comments I receive when I say that I baked the cake I brought along WITH my minis. And of course, there is a kernel of truth in these statements… Baking with children in the kitchen is definitely nothing “meditative,” and when baking and decorating is done with real enthusiasm, it can happen that the kitchen should get acquainted with the mop afterward… 😉

Still, baking with children is a lot of fun! Little humans are naturally curious and interested in everything new. And when they’re also allowed to help and take part, they’re on the seventh cloud. Of course, you should involve your child in baking according to their abilities and age. Even the youngest children can take on many small tasks with your help.

Baking with Children Is Family Time

There are several reasons why I bake with my children. My favorite one, however, is that they enjoy baking just as much as I do! 🙂 Most of the time we enjoy the time together—our family time—listening to music, maybe singing along; sometimes one of us is being silly, sometimes another, sometimes mom…

With every baking session, not only is (hopefully) a delicious baked good created, but usually also “a beautiful memory„.

Learning About Food Along the Way

As long as I can remember, I’ve found learning at a desk rather boring—don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that it’s still necessary 😉 Still, I find it much more exciting when I’m allowed to learn by trying things out and through my own “experiments,” and when learning happens almost “incidentally.”

In my opinion, baking with children offers exactly that in many ways. While baking, the minis learn a lot about the foodswe use. Which ingredients belong in a cake? Sugar feels different than flour. Nuts can look very different—whole, ground, chopped. And much more… They learn all of this along the way. Isn’t that great?

Counting & Understanding Quantities

You can also wonderfully reinforce numbers and counting while baking with your child. With my youngest, I diligently count eggs and how many spoonfuls of cocoa go into the batter. My older one is already trying hard to recognize all the numbers on the digital scale.

In addition, my minis develop a sense of quantities. Do you really need an entire package of flour for a cake, and isn’t a single spoonful of flour perhaps a little too little?

Physical Development Through Baking with Children

From a motor skills perspective, little ones can gain an incredible amount from baking with children. Whether they’re training gross motor skills while kneading dough, or die fine motor skillswhile placing individual sugar pearls on their cookie with endless attention to detail —where of course every pearl has its exact place 😉

Cutting out cookies, spreading icing with a brush, stirring with a whisk, or adding ingredients to the bowl also promote motor development..

When looking at adding ingredients to the mixing bowl or artistically decorating baked goods, it becomes clear that hand–eye coordination is also being practiced in this context.

Mental Development Through Baking with Children

The journey from raw ingredients to a fully decorated cake can easily take one to two hours. For the minis, that’s a perceived eternity! (With acute cake cravings, it’s a loooong time for me too!) Here, they definitely have to practice patience —a situation they will likely encounter more than once in their future.

In order for a cake to be created, a variety of processes must be carried out with concentration and in a specific order. Through baking a cake, your child can see that certain tasks must be completed and sequences followed in order to achieve—in this case—a delicious result.

I find it especially wonderful to observe how creative children are by nature. If you let them work freely with cookies and heaps of sugar pearls and other decorative treats, the most exciting fantasy creatures emerge. Creativity at its peak! Watching the minis being creative can even give some adults a proper creative boost 😉

Baking with Children Is a Delicious Experience

I consider it one of the most challenging tasks as a mother to give my minis enough self-confidence to take with them on their journey. To strengthen them so they can go through their young lives full of confidence. That’s why I find it fantastic that baking offers a wonderful sense of achievement for the minis at the end. Even if the cake definitely doesn’t look like it came from the latest baking magazine, and maybe it’s drier than expected… (a small side tip: there’s nothing that sprinkles & chocolate can’t fix 😉). I’ve never experienced a child being unhappy with their result. The minis look proudly at their cake and present it to everyone with a happy grin and puffed-up chest.

A reason to celebrate every cake—every success experience of the minis !

Well, and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t serve you the most honest reason as well: whoever bakes cake can, of course, also eat it! 🙂 The highlight of every baking session with the minis is, of course, ceremoniously enjoying the magnificent cake together afterward.

Bake with Your Children

As you can see, the “stress” and the subsequent “kitchen chaos” when baking with children are absolutely worth it—for your children and for you.

You not only get to spend a beautiful time together, but also give the minis something for their path through life 🙂 And to top it all off, you get to enjoy a delicious cake together afterward.

Of course, there are also various tips (have you already read my blog post “Baking with Children: My Tips for Baking with Children”) and tools to make baking with children a memorable experience for both young and old. I’ve put together a list of baking utensils that can further enhance the baking experience with children*.

(*The links marked with an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. I can recommend suitable products that do not cost you more and I receive a small commission that helps me finance my blog. Thank you!)

And now, off to the mixing bowl & have lots of fun!

Yours, Lia

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