21/08/2026
Week 5, Activity 9
Baking with children, in my experience, is a bit like marmite, some people love it, and others hate it.
Personally, I think it’s worth the extra effort, and the inevitable extra mess – it’s one of the things I remember most clearly from my own childhood, standing up on a chair against the kitchen counter (from a time before learning towers were a thing!), usually squished up with my sister, both desperate to help my mum with the cooking or baking.
And it’s one of the legacies my grandparents have left me with too – from learning how to bake in my grandmother’s kitchen in summer holidays, to learning how to cook a proper Italian bolognese with my Nana as a teenager some of the best memories are made in the kitchen, so I always feel like it’s worth the extra time and slight inconvenience.
As a nanny though I learnt some of the best tricks to making baking with children actually straightforward. From the fundamental “don’t overcomplicate” to the slightly less obvious “measure everything twice” some of my favourite nannying moments have also come from the kitchen.
From baking mince pies for our Christmas party with 3 wonderful nanny friends and first 4 and later 7 little ones, to teaching my 15 month old charge to make banana bread on the kitchen floor (the only place he could reach before the arrival of his learning tower!) there are so many wonderful things to be learnt and shared.
Don’t be afraid to buy premade ingredients – puff pastry for example is not worth the faff, and if you’re not a confident baker then pre-made mixes are also a great option. Muffins, I think, are a great place to start – they’re fairly simple, endlessly customisable, and harder than average to mess up. But if that’s not a good option for you just do a small amount of googling and find an alternative recipe; mince pies with shop bought pastry and mincemeat work well, or simple banana pancakes!
I’m not going to share a recipe to make muffins today – google can do that perfectly well, but I will say, embrace the mess, measure twice (little people first, and then do it again yourself), and most importantly slow down, and take the time to make some wonderful memories!
