5 Ridiculously Easy Baking Activities You Can Do With Your Kids

Written By Safi Newton, Project Worker at Home For Good.

Like many of you I feel like I have spent the last 8 or so weeks tidying up a lot of toys and cooking a lot of meals! At times it has felt never ending, as soon as I have mopped our cream, tiled kitchen floor someone comes in from outside and traipses mud everywhere, so off we go again!

I love cooking and would rather spend time in the kitchen making a treat (and eating it) than watching tv – it relaxes and focusses me! At the start of lockdown I decided that it would make life easier, and be fun, if my children (aged eight and four) helped me to prepare our evening meals. This has had limited success but my 8 year old has finally learnt to spread a jam sandwich this week after quite a lot of protest! Small steps eh?

Like many, we haven’t yet managed to get a food delivery so something I have enjoyed doing is making some fun treats in the kitchen using what we have in the cupboards.

Banana Cake

All in one banana cake is great for using up those browning bananas, it’s minimal effort and great for breakfast and a snack. We double the recipe as we eat is so quickly!! We have enjoyed this with raisins, chocolate chips or walnuts. On a hot summer day there is nothing better than a home-made ice-lolly, we have some ice lolly moulds which are easily available. We filled them with squash and added food colouring (be careful as the blue and black stayed around on faces for a while!!). You could add lemonade to make them fizzy or use fruit juice to make sure they contain one of the kids five-a-day.

Find recipe here.

Northern Irish Fridge Bake

I must confess, I have found teaching my son maths a challenge, it is not my strength, so the next recipe with it’s easy measurements was perfect for me! Fifteens are a childhood favourite, a Northern Irish fridge bake. You just need 15 of three ingredients, digestive biscuits, glace cherries and marshmallows which are combined in a delicious gooey mixture with condensed milk and rolled in desiccated coconut.

Find recipe here.

Jelly

Another easy make is jelly! A packet of jelly costs about £1 and it is fun to let the kids cut the blocks of jelly up, mix it with water (my little one can mix for at least ten minutes!) and then put it in the fridge for a few hours. You can add fresh or tinned fruit to it or make it in a rubber mould (we used a heart shape).

Home-Made Pizza

Home-made pizza is a firm favourite. We bought a bread machine for £5 from gumtree and make our
dough or you can make it by hand and kids love the kneading process.
. It makes for a fun family activity to
add your toppings together and we then play Italian music to make it feel like we are on holiday!

Find recipe here.

Easy Apple Crumble

Something a bit more complex for older children to practice cutting and for everyone to enjoy the
mixing is a tasty crumble and custard. We have enjoyed rhubarb from our neighbours garden, pears,
apples, plums and berries in our crumbles. We love making custard from birds custard powder as it
tastes great and is such fun to mix!

Find recipe here