Are you looking for some easy baking ideas for your curious toddler? Perhaps they’re getting more and more interested in what’s going on in the kitchen and you want to try something out. Whether they just love baking, eating or decorating food, it’s never too early to get your toddler involved in some easy baking. So read on for some great baking ideas for your little one (for ease of visual measuring with toddlers, we’ve used cups and spoons).
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1. Retro Rice Crispy Cakes – Toddler Baking Ideas
Remember the humble rice crispy cakes of your childhood? Often recipes for these would be written on cereal packets. Rice crispy cakes are really fast and simple to make. Using extra ingredients, you can transform these into chocolate rice crispy cakes, Easter nests (with mini eggs inside) or decorate them in any way you wish.
You Will Need:
For the cakes: 1 cup rice crispies/puffed rice (or cornflakes), 4 tablespoons of golden syrup and 1 cup of butter (or dairy-free alternative), ½ cup dark or milk chocolate (optional)
For the topping: cacao nibs, chocolate drops, mini eggs, Smarties or sprinkles.
Method For Rice Crispy Cakes:
Melt the butter (or dairy-free equivalent) and golden syrup together in a pan over a low heat. If you want to make your cakes chocolatey, also stir in the chocolate at this stage and melt. Remove from the heat and stir in the rice crispies until they are coated with the mixture. Spoon out the mixture into cup or fairy cake cases and press them down slightly to help them stick together. Decorate with whichever toppings you like while the cakes are still warm and leave them to set. Put the cakes in the fridge if you want them to set faster.
Which Baking Bits Can My Toddler Help With?
Toddlers can help with pouring, mixing, shaping, decorating – everything to make their rice crispy cake look as yummy as possible.
2. Brilliant Bread – Toddler Baking Ideas
Does your toddler fancy something savoury? They’ll need a little patience while the bread rises but will enjoy the mixing and kneading before the dough turns into something magical at the end!
You Will Need:
5 cups of bread flour (plain, wholewheat or granary), 2 tablespoons of olive, vegetable or sunflower oil, 1 tablespoon of maple syrup or honey (see NHS safety advice on only giving honey to over ones), 1 teaspoon of salt and 7g sachet of fast-action dried yeast, 1 ¼ cups of warm (cooled boiled) water (use ½ cup of boiled water mixed with ¾ cup of cold water – it should still be warm, but not hot).
Method For Baking Bread:
Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a bowl with your hands. Mix the cooled boiled water in a jug and add the maple syrup/honey and oil to the water. Now stir the water, oil and honey into the dry ingredients. This will make a soft dough. Sprinkle some flour onto a bread board or baking sheet and knead the dough on the board with your hands. Do this for five minutes. If the dough feels really sticky, add more flour. Finally, oil a bread tin and press the dough into the tin with your hands. Cover it with a tea towel and leave it to rise in a warm place for one hour.
After one hour, the dough should have risen so it’s full of air. Pre-heat the oven to 180⁰ and bake the bread in it’s tin for 30-35 minutes.
Thanks to BBC Good Food for inspiration with this recipe and method.
Which Baking Bits Can My Toddler Help With?
Toddlers will love getting stuck in with mixing the ingredients and kneading the dough with their hands and fingers. Here’s a visual guide with pictures from how we montessori of how all the different stages of the breadmaking process can look for a toddler.
3. Flavoursome Flapjacks – Toddler Baking Ideas
Here at Happity, we’re often talking about eating healthy flapjack! So try this wholesome and scrumptious flapjack recipe with your toddler. It’s free from refined sugar and nut-free as well. Thank you to Sneaky Veg for the inspiration.
You Will Need:
1 cup dairy-free spread (or butter), 1 tablespoon of maple syrup or honey* (for toddlers over one year), 2 cups of oats, 1 ½ cups of raisins (or any dried fruit), , ½ cup sunflower seeds (use desiccated coconut or pumpkin seeds if you prefer), 1 grated apple, 1 zested orange and ½ juiced orange.
*For babies under one year old, always use maple syrup rather than honey – see the NHS safety advice for why this is.
Method For Flapjacks:
Firstly, melt the spread (or butter) together with the spoon of maple syrup (or honey) in a saucepan on a low heat. Then, mix together all the dry ingredients (oats, raisins, seeds) in a bowl with the apple, orange juice and orange zest. Add the mixture to the melted spread and maple syrup in the pan, and mix together well with a rubber spatula. Spoon or pour into a lined and greased square or rectangular cake tin. Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 180⁰ (fan) before cooling and cutting into slices.
More Baking Tips:
Make sure you press these flapjacks down firmly in the tin before baking so they stick together better. The Sneaky Veg blog also recommends you use a blender or food processor to pulse the ingredients a bit, which will also help them stick together.
Which Baking Bits Can My Toddler Help With?
This is a great measure, mix and stir recipe, so your toddler can get involved with making all stages of this flapjack recipe.
4. Gorgeous Gingerbread Biscuits – Toddler Baking Ideas
Gingerbread is a classic. It’s so easy to make and get toddlers involved too. Then they can help decorate the gingerbread at the end too with icing, sprinkles, chocolate drops or cacao nibs.
You Will Need:
For the gingerbread: 3 ½ cups of plain or wholewheat flour, 2 teaspoons of ginger (ground), 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 1 cup of butter (or dairy-free equivalent like coconut oil), 1 ¾ cups light brown (or muscovado) sugar*, 4 tablespoons maple or golden syrup, 1 large egg (beaten)
For the topping: raisins, icing, rainbow sprinkles, Smarties or cacao nibs
Alternative Ingredients For Gingerbread:
You can try substituting black treacle instead of sugar* and miss out the egg as the black treacle will give it extra moisture. Or here’s a very low sugar alternative recipe for toddlers which uses apple juice instead of sugar from Charlotte Stirling-Reed, a baby and child nutritionist. And here’s a nut-free and dairy-free option from yummy TODDLER food.
Method For Gingerbread:
Add the flour, ground ginger and bicarbonate of soda to a bowl. Use your fingers to rub in the butter – it will look like breadcrumbs. Then stir in the sugar or black treacle. Finally, mix in the golden syrup (and beaten egg if you’re using one) until the mixture looks like a smooth dough. Knead the mixture with your knuckles and flatten it out with your hands (you can also use a rolling pin for this). Take your cutters and press out your gingerbread shapes. Bake on a lightly-greased baking tray for 10-12 minutes at 170⁰ (fan).
Which Baking Bits Can My Toddler Help With?
Toddlers can help with all stages of a gingerbread recipe, from mixing the ingredients with their hands to pressing down and cutting out their favourite gingerbread shapes. Oh, and decorating and eating them too of course!
5. Messy Milk Cake – Toddler Baking Ideas
As mentioned in our recent post about Eid, milk cake is currently trending as a dessert. Easy, fast and messy, your toddlers can get really hands-on with this one. Thank you to Ilhan on Tik Tok for inspiring us with her yummy-looking recipe for milk cake with a Somalian twist.
You Will Need:
For the cake: spices (cardamon, cloves and ginger), three types of milk (full fat or semi-skimmed milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk), Madeira cake (slice one up or you can buy it pre-sliced)
For the topping: double-cream, icing sugar, vanilla extract, a crunchy topping like crushed pistachios or digestive/ginger biscuits
Method For Milk Cake:
Add the milk to a saucepan, then add the cardamon, cloves and ginger. Mix together, then add the evaporated milk and condensed milk. Simmer, and then turn off the heat. Line an oven dish with slices of Madeira cake and poke some holes in the cake so the milk can absorb. Sieve off the spices from the milk in the saucepan, then pour all the mixed milk over the slices of Madeira cake.
Now make the topping. Whisk together the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract until it’s stiff. Spread the topping over the base with a palette knife or soft silicon spatula. Top with crushed pistachios or you could use digestive biscuits if you want the crunch without the nuts.
Find the full recipe for milk cake on Ilhan’s page here and thank you again to her for her inspiration. She refers to cardamon, cloves and ginger as Somalian tea spices, which is her personal twist on the recipe.
Which Baking Bits Can My Toddler Help With?
Your toddler can sprinkle in the spices at the start, pour in any of the milks, help cut (or break) up the Madeira cake and line the oven dish, poke holes in the cake, help with the whisking and spreading and help sprinkle on the crunchy topping. Just be extra careful with the simmering milk at the start of the recipe.
Where Can I Find More Easy Baking Ideas For Toddlers?
If you’re looking for a book recommendation for recipe ideas, try My First Baking Book For Toddlers. Not only is it written by a Bake Off winner, it has beautiful illustrations, too.
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