With children in the kitchen: how to turn cooking together into pleasure?

Many parents consciously refuse to cook food with their children, justifying themselves by saying that they alone will do everything much faster and will not leave a mess behind. They can be understood, although in fact there are much more advantages from joint cooking than disadvantages. It not only strengthens relationships within the family, but also has a positive effect on the cognitive development of the baby. A little cook will quickly learn independence and responsibility. And the kits from Ivan-Pole will help turn cooking into real culinary creativity.

Fine motor skills and knowledge of the world

Almost every child probably knows that chocolate is sweet. How about other products? What does the dough feel like? Why is flour crumbly? How does the already familiar chocolate behave when it is melted or, on the contrary, frozen? To us adults, it all seems elementary. For a child, the properties of products are a new world, which he is in a hurry to know. He is not only interested, but also important to try everything on personal experience. And the more senses involved in this (smell, touch, sight and taste), the better. From this point of view, cooking is more effective than many developmental activities. Try to explain to the child on your fingers how a ball differs from a circle. Curse everything. And cook cake pops together and he will tell you about everything.

Logic and broadening one’s horizons

Helping mom in the kitchen, the child learns to act consistently. He understands that making a cake is a set of specific actions. It is impossible to first cover everything with chocolate icing, and then prepare the dough for the cakes. You can not mix all the ingredients in equal amounts, the taste is determined by the correct proportion. This knowledge is very useful outside of the kitchen as well.

In addition, while cooking with their parents, the child (if he is very small) learns how to properly transfer objects, hold a spoon, and beat with a whisk. He might not be very good the first time around. Don’t get mad at him, you’re not likely to speak Portuguese after a trial lesson. Each time, the baby will cope more and more confidently. You yourself will not notice how one day you wake up, and he will serve you his own cooked breakfast in bed. Then all your hard work will be rewarded.

In addition, cooking together is a great opportunity to learn something new (and not only for a child). Bake together the famous «Sacher», and at the same time tell the child why he is so famous. Now there is enough information on the net to find answers to almost all questions, including where such a funny name came from. And then everything depends only on your patience and curiosity, because one small cake can be an occasion to explore the whole country. In the case of «Sacher» — Austria.

The cure for the crisis of 3 years

Encouraging the independence of a child, which he learns at the age of 2-3 years, is not easy. Especially if you are already late for work, and the kid decided to put on his shoes “by himself”. But doing it in the kitchen, when there are ready-made kits for creativity from Ivan-Pole at hand, is as easy as shelling pears.

Whatever you decide to cook, you will find carefully balanced and weighed packets of ingredients that you just need to open and mix with water or vegetable oil. Agree, this can be entrusted even to a child. In addition, you will save your energy, because you will not need to run around the shops in search of the necessary products. Yes, and finances will not suffer much, since you do not have to buy a whole package of rice flour, for example, for a couple of spoons required by a recipe.

Entrust the child with part of the process (believe me, it is extremely difficult to do something wrong with ready-made kits). He will not get bored, as is usually the case when you have to measure everything yourself and he will feel his own importance. Especially if he prepares a dessert for the whole family.

Ease of execution

Have you ever cooked a classic Sacher? It seems we know why. Separate the whites from the yolks, beat some with sugar until peaks, others — beat first, then add melted chocolate and beat again. Then turn the mass into a biscuit dough and bake it. And separately, you will also need to prepare the icing and get apricot jam. It is not surprising that the help of the child in this case can only interfere.

The method of preparing a mixture for baking «Chocolate Zacher Cake» from «Ivan-Pole» includes only 6 points:

1. Pour the biscuit mixture into a deep bowl and mix with water and vegetable oil.
2. Pour the finished dough into a mold and bake in the oven until cooked.
3. When the biscuit has cooled, cut it into two cakes and coat the bottom one with the fruit filling from the set.
4. We connect the cakes and grease the entire cake with the filling.
5. We heat a glass of ganache in the microwave and coat the cake on all sides.
6. We remove the cake in the refrigerator until the ganache hardens.

At the same time, the composition of the cake from the finished set practically does not differ from the classic recipe. It contains the usual wheat flour and sugar, natural egg products and cream, cocoa products and apricots.

Cake pops — fashion for joy

Cooking together is pure joy. And in order for it to be experienced not only by a child, but also by an adult, you just need to create suitable conditions. For example, buy ready-made cake pops (chocolate-coated or yogurt-covered in white chocolate).

Sweets contain natural ingredients: wheat and rice flour, sugar, egg products, corn starch, baking soda, normalized milk and cocoa products. Necessary accessories (sticks and molds) are also included in the set. Each makes 5 delicious mini-cakes, which can be prepared in half an hour.

1. Dilute the biscuit mixture with water and beat with a blender. We bake it right in the microwave and grind it into crumbs.
2. Dissolve milk powder in water, melt chocolate in the microwave. We combine everything and mix.
3. Mix the resulting chocolate cream with biscuit crumbs and form 5 balls.
4. We string each on a stick — and in the freezer for 15 minutes.
5. Melt the remaining chocolate in the microwave and add a little vegetable oil.
6. We take the ball by the stick and dip it in the icing. Place in paper molds and leave to cool.