Baking is a wonderful way to inculcate a lifelong interest in kids towards kitchen. Not only it develops their interest in homemade food but also teaches them about the different aspects and processes involved in making a tiny treat. Right form selection of ingredients, to measuring, sifting, mixing, baking to serving, each process is a teacher in its own sense. Whether it’s some wonderfully baked treat or a tiny savory the sense of creating stuff right from scratch gives immense satisfaction both to the little chefs and moms.
Since baking does not involve fire, it’s much more safer to let the little ones experiment to their hearts content, of course adult supervision is must while they operate the oven or any electronic gadget. It would be totally justified to say baking enhances their creativity factor – using fancy cookie cutters to shape cookies or selecting colors and designs for piping the cupcake to rolling the dough in fancy shapes for home baked breads, there is no end to the fun. Often the tiny hands make the gadgets or the kitchen a bit messy but the immense joy when their art is devoured by themselves or shared with friends is totally worth it.
Their interest in food and love in baking can slowly serve as a blessing in disguise too. It’s much easier to teach a kitchen enthusiast alternative ways of preparing healthy food, retaining the nutritional value of foods or experimenting with various health friendly ingredients but surely tougher to teach same theories with ease to kids who stay away from kitchen. Self-baked oil free French fries or baked veggie loaded burger patties would surely give them a chance to bigger and healthier helpings and lot of inspiration to try their hands at more baking experiments.
Even if you are a novice at baking, these simple points will be a great help to invite kids in the kitchen and add loads of fun without any fuss.
-To start with dedicate an hour once a week to ‘Kids in the kitchen’, start with something that your kids totally love.
-Make sure to choose a simple recipe with minimal ingredients to start with, keep the lengthy or complex recipes for a later stage as failure in the beginning could make them loose interest.
– Plan in advance. Print/write a recipe on a piece of paper and involve the kids in making an ingredient shopping list, if possible take them along to the market too.
-Take their help in arranging the required utensils and gadgets on the kitchen counter.
– Ask them to read out the recipe and follow it, but make sure to keep an eye and help them during the entire process.
-If required keep explaining what a particular term in the recipe means – make them aware of serving sizes and plating ideas.
– Make sure to ensure safety measures while operating the oven and don’t forget to make them wear some colorful oven mitts and apron.
– Lastly if it’s a calorie laden dessert or savory do ask them not to finish it alone but to share it with their friends and fetch compliments.
This recipe is super easy and will never let you down (even if you have never tried your hands at baking before). Enriched with the goodness of iron rich dates it’s loaded with antioxidant rich walnuts too. Perfect to try out with kids.
Date and Walnut muffins
Makes (6-7 muffins)
Prep time- 10 mins
Cooking time – 25-28 mins.
Ingredients
1 cup refined flour (maida)
1 ¼ cup milk
½ cup refined oil
¾ cup powdered sugar
10-12 seedless dates
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup chopped walnuts
Method
Preheat your whirlpool microwave on convection mode at 180C.
Sift together flour & soda.
Boil milk & soak dates in it 10-12 mins.
Strain & blend in a mixer till pasty. Mix in the strained milk.
Gently add oil & powdered sugar & blend for a min.
Pour the mixture in a large bowl & fold in flour.
Mix in the walnuts & spoon in silicon cups / lined muffin cups.
Bake in the preheated oven for 25-28 mins or till toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm.
Note – You can now enjoy cakes/muffins that are perfectly fluffy and evenly baked thanks to the advanced Oven mode of Whirlpool Microwave Oven range.
