Holiday Baking with Kids

The holidays are quickly approaching at what feels like breakneck speed. Amidst the planning, purchasing, crafting, giving, donating, and decorating craziness, I also like to add the joy of holiday baking with our girls into the mix. There are so many benefits to having your little ones join you in the kitchen for some holiday baking fun.

Now, let’s keep it real for a second, having your minions around eggs, knives, flour, and mess is not my idea of rest. At first, I shied away from the whole ordeal because my Type A style did not welcome sticky hands all over my kitchen.

However, like with most areas of my parenting journey, I have learned to embrace (and semi-control) the mess to make priceless memories with my girls. So grab an apron and join me in the kitchen for some easy tips on how to have your kids help with baking this holiday season without turning into a Mommy Grinch in the process.

Keep it simple.

This is not the time to break out Martha Stewart’s recipe for chocolate croissants. While tasty, buttery, flaky, and delicious, this 24-million-step recipe with long wait times between steps is not exactly toddler-friendly. Some of our favorite easy-peasy recipes include simple brownies, blondies, Rice Krispies treats, and apple crisp.

Apple crisp is a great first-timer recipe because it does require eggs (which my children always insist on breaking themselves), and you don’t need to measure. Just dump some butter, flour, sugar, oats, and seasoning into a bowl, MIX with your hands, then sprinkle over cut-up apples and bake. Viola, your house now smells like William Sonoma on cinnamon steroids.

Also, I find “bar” recipes, such as blondies and brownies, way easier than cookies. Lastly, embrace your friends in the baking aisle, Betty and Dunkin, there ain’t no shame in baking from a box.

Timing is everything.

This is another tip that applies to all of parenting. You want to time your baking to avoid hanger (when your child is hungry and angry), tired, or cranky. So basically, you are thinking NEVER. But I have found two tiny windows of baking time that work with my girls. One is 10:00 in the morning. After the girls have had breakfast and they are in their morning happiness zones, it is a great time to break out the Kitchenaid and whip something up. This also allows you ample time to bake and clean up before lunch prep.

Another time is 2:00 p.m. or early afternoon. Here is how it works. You pray to the nap gods and cross your fingers and toes that you’re under the age of three, and that the minions are taking their glorious afternoon nap. During that precious and precise moment, go into the kitchen and bust your butt to prep the recipe – pre-measure, and cut ingredients with sharp knives.

Now that my older daughter dropped her nap (we are still grieving this), she can help with the prep. This fun-filled scenario can best be illustrated by the one very, very stress-inducing, messy recipe I only make once a year… iced sugar cookies. This holiday classic is baked to homemade sugary success in our house by prepping and chilling the dough with the older child, and ONLY when the little one wakes up do we ice the cookies with more sugar and food coloring for good measure.

Wear aprons.

Mainly because the girls look adorbs wearing aprons, and I am a big believer that looking the part is half the battle. This is what I tell my husband about my golf game. There is also a very nostalgic, sentimental reason for this imperative tradition of apron-wearing, since my great-grandma hand-sewed the aprons for me when I was little. Lastly, cooking is messy, and we don’t need to add to the Mount Everest of exponentially growing laundry pile.

The gift is in the giving.

We love to bake. During the holiday season (which I define as Nov 1 to Jan 1), we bake a lot more. Now, I am also slightly obsessed with healthy eating and minimizing the number of empty calories we consume. We are big believers in moderation, so we obtain this goal by donating or giving away many of our holiday sweets. The girls adore creating crafty baskets of yummy treats and leaving them with unassuming neighbors, the local fire department, and our good friend who just had baby number three. We are all about the fun surprise element of leaving the goodies on the stoop and driving away.

Let them break the eggs.

I mentioned earlier that the kiddos love cracking eggs. Now I am all about sensory play, but I draw the line at semolina-spread eggy goo. When we first started baking together, I told them that there was a grown-up egg rule; the same goes for hot stoves and sharp knives – you can look, but don’t touch.

Then my best friend, who I love dearly, but has way more tolerance and patience for kitchen chaos, let the girls crack eggs at her house. My gig was up. Now I take a deep breath and pray that all goes well. You can easily “fish” out egg shells by slightly wetting your finger with water. Also, break the eggs into a separate bowl and then add them to your batter.

Take all the photos.

Don’t forget to keep the camera close and ready. Baking is a great time to snap some classic photos.

Do you like to bake for the holidays with your kids? What are your favorite holiday recipes?