Kid Friendly Valentine's Day Baking

Children also like to bake. It’s fun for them but most of all they feel they are helping and spending one on one time with Mom. Baking on Valentine’s Day is a given and allowing your children to help is one way of showing them how much they mean to you.

Cookies are an easy item for children to bake. Making them from scratch can be fun but if your children are young or inexperienced try starting with refrigerated dough first. Refrigerated dough can be bought in most any grocery store and there are a variety of kinds to choose from. Take the kids with you to the store and let them pick out their favorite kind.

Rolling out the dough will make it much easier for the children to work with. Place a little flour on a flat surface. Let the kids roll the rolling pin through the flour to coat it. This will also help them become adjusted to the rolling pin’s weight and size before they began to roll the dough. Then let them go to town rolling out the dough. Don’t let them roll it out too flat though or their cookies will be as flat as pancakes.

Use heart shaped cookie cutters of all sizes to form the cookies. Kids will love cutting out those little shapes. Let them experiment with other cookie cutters or even come up with some of their own creations with the left over dough.

Cupcakes are pretty easy for children to bake also. Buy a boxed cake mix to make it easier on all of you. Show them how to mix the ingredients all together. Give them pointers on how to make sure the egg is completely mixed in and how to scrape the sides of the bowl. Once they have the mix all together help them fill decorative muffin cups or the muffin tins in just the right amount. Even mini muffin tins will work to make their special treats.

If you have an oven light turn it on and let the kids watch the cookies or cupcakes bake. The get a kick out of watching them rise and turn light brown. Just remind them how hot the oven door can get and that they shouldn’t get too close or touch the oven while the food is baking.

Once the cookies and cupcakes are finished let the kids have fun decorating. Use white icing or tint it pink with a little red food coloring. Sprinkles are a great item to decorate with. If they don’t come in a container that has holes in the top make one your self using plastic wrap and a rubber band. Place the wrap over the open container top, wrap the rubber band around the outside and poke holes in the plastic with fork tines. Now they can sprinkle those little things all over the top of their cookies and cupcakes. Candies such as conversation hearts and red hots also make great decorations for Valentine’s Day baked goods. If they would like to write something special as a decoration use different colored decorating gels. They are easy to use and not as messy as other types of icing.

Giving your children a chance to help you in the kitchen is a good learning experience. Giving them the opportunity to make delicious treats for family, friends and themselves for Valentine’s Day is just the icing on the cake.

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