Cooking with your children, from toddlers to teenagers, has lots of benefits. Lockdown could be the perfect time to get in the kitchen, and the best thing is, it’s still learning!
As well as being fun, cooking with your child:
- gives you the chance to introduce them to fresh, healthy food
- helps them learn about how different foods look and where they come from
- helps them develop healthy eating habits because they’re more likely to try healthy food that they have helped to cook
- helps them learn about family traditions, recipes and foods
- prepares them for cooking for themselves or the family in the future
- helps build their maths skills – for example, when they measure liquid in a jug
- helps build vocabulary – for example, when you read a recipe together.
It’s also a great way to spend more time with your child and share the responsibility of cooking for your family.
This week’s recipe is a bit of fun for them. Be creative with what you make. It doesn’t just have to be gingerbread men - you could use any cookie cutters!
Easy Gingerbread Cookies
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour (or half all purpose and half whole-wheat flour)
- ½ teaspoon of baking powder
- ½ teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons of maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 2 tablespoons of milk
- ¼ cup unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)
- Sprinkles, raisins, chocolate chips
Method
1.Place all ingredients into a bowl and use your hand to mix together to form a dough. You'll want to be gentle but thorough to incorporate the butter into the dough. (If the dough seems a little too dry once you've incorporated the liquid and butter into the flour, you can add another tablespoon of milk but go easy on the liquid as more will make the dough stickier. It's ready when it holds together when you try to form it into a ball.)
2. Make a flattened disc of dough. Optional: Wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes. This will make the dough a little less sticky for rolling out, but it works okay to skip this step too if the kids don't want to wait.
3.Preheat the oven to 185°C and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
4.Roll the dough ¼-inch thick between two pieces of parchment or plastic wrap. (You can do it on a lightly floured surface, but I always find this easier. You'll want to use parchment paper if you skipped chilling the dough so it doesn't stick.)
5.Cut out the dough with a cookie cutter and transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. (Keep an eye on them after 8 minutes since the edges can brown fast.
6.Remove from the oven, let cool on the baking sheet for a minute, and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
7.Use a small butter knife to spread on the icing or pipe on as desired. If adding sprinkles or other decorations, add them to the iced cookies right away before it dries.
Notes: could use additional maple syrup if molasses is unavailable.
Royal Icing:
Stir together ½ cup powdered sugar with a few drops of milk, adding more of either as needed to make a thick icing. Spread on cookies or put into a ziplock bag, seal, and snip one edge off to make a little piping bag for the kids.
Cream Cheese Icing:
Stir together about 110g cream cheese, softened, with 1-2 tablespoons honey until spreadable or pipeable. You can put some into a ziplock bag, seal it and snip one edge off to make a little piping bag for the kids. Add on raisins or chocolate chips as you like!
Make-Ahead:
You can make the dough the night before or a few hours in advance and store it in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap. It will need to sit at room temperature for about an hour to soften up, or you can remove it from the plastic, put it onto a plate, and microwave for 5-10 seconds.
Recipe credit: yummytoddlerfood.com.au
Ms Kellee Bagnall
Teacher
