Cooking
with children
Cooking is the perfect combination of fun and creativity, and is a great way
to teach
children about the food they eat. School holidays is the best time to
teach them cookery because in a way it is educational as well as a new experience.
Learning to prepare food teaches children to be
self sufficient and better prepared for an independent life when they are
living away from their parents. Getting children involved in the
kitchen is
also a great way to motivate fussy eaters. Children will eagerly tuck into
something they have prepared themselves .This
is a good way of teaching your children basic skills in the kitchen and proper
hygiene rules while working in the kitchen. Some of the important things to remember
are:
v
Always wash your hands first.
v
Wash all fruits and vegetables.
v
Always check the expiry date on the ingredients
before using.
v
Use the cutting board .
v
Always remain a little bit far away from the gas
flame.One of the children friendly
recipes is heart shaped faces.Ingredients used are:
100g slightly softened butter,50g caster sugar,175gplain flour,pinch of salt and
a few drops of vanilla essence.
For the icing:
100g icing sugar sifted,½tbsp lemon juice or water
For the decoration:
small tubes red, yellow, green and black writing icing (available in most
supermarkets),mini coloured sugar balls used for cake decoration for the eyes.
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Beat the butter and sugar together either by
hand with a wooden spoon or in an electric mixer at low speed until thoroughly
mixed. Sift together the flour and salt and mix this into the butter mixture
together with a few drops of vanilla essence to form a fairly stiff dough. If
the dough is too dry add a little water.2. Form the dough into a ball using
your hands, then roll out thinly on a floured work surface using a rolling pin
dusted with flour. Cut into heart shapes using biscuit cutters. Collect all the
trimmings together and roll these out again to make more
biscuits. Arrange on
greased or lined baking sheets and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes or until the
biscuits are lightly golden.
3. To make the icing, put the icing sugar in a bowl with enough lemon juice or
water to make a good spreading consistency. Spread the icing onto the cooled
biscuits with a small palette knife. When set decorate each cookie to look like
a face using the tubes of writing icing and sugar balls for eyes.
This recipe takes about 30 min to1 hour of preparation and 10 min of
cooking.