Holiday Baking with the Kids

Now that we are officially into the holiday season I have been in the kitchen constantly baking sweets. While sometimes I wish I was making everything from prepackaged store bought boxes, I just can’t put myself to do it this time of year. It just feels like I’m breaking some sort of rule and on that note prepackaged bakes aren’t nearly as much fun to do with the kids. It’s hard enough trying to keep the little ones entertained when the weather sucks so why take short cuts baking when you can make it a family activity?

My two kids love to be in the kitchen with me no matter what I am doing. My son likes to get into the cupboards, fridge, dishwasher and anything else he deems an appropriate fort like structure and then I have my sweet little girl who is interested in baking to see how many sweets she can weasel out of me before dinner. Either way, they are both entertained and the mommy, mommy, mommy routine is on pause.  As of lately it’s been batch after batch of chocolate chip cookies (I think it’s cause the chips are easy sweets to sneak a bite of without mommy noticing).

Miss T is only seven but you’d be surprised at how much she can actually do to help bake cookies from scratch. She amazes me and every time I let her take on a new baking responsibility she handles it no problem. Once I have all the ingredients out she separates them by what gets mixed together and in what bowl, sets up the hand mixer and we are ready to go. I premeasured each ingredient for her and she dumps them into the appropriate bowl and she is now also cracking eggs like a pro and leaves no shell behind.  I still hold the job of using the hand mixer even though she claims the beaters and spoons but while mixing she sifts the flour mixture into the big bowl of wet ingredients and prides herself in being tidy about it. Then we both scoop dough onto the cookie sheet and I put them in the oven.

See now if we had used the prepackaged stuff I never would have seen just how talented my daughter really is becoming in the kitchen and these are what holiday memories are made of. I remember baking in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother. I love being able to share these moments with her and give her something that money could never buy and she’ll have for a life time.

Here is a great site for holiday baking recipes that I use all the time and they have a section that’s focused on recipes to do with the kids.