With Shrove Tuesday coming up next week (March 5th don’t forget), we feel inspired to get baking and what better way than to share this with your children and make some fun memories at the same time!
A brief history of pancake day
Pancake day is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent (Ash Wednesday). Lent refers to the 40 days leading up to Easter which is traditionally a fasting period. Therefore, shrove Tuesday is seen to be the last opportunity to use up eggs and butter before lent begins. Pancakes are the perfect way to use up these ingredients. Traditional toppings include lemon and sugar but you can be as creative as you like. So get your frying pans ready! 🥞 🍳
Crepe style pancakes 
American style pancakes
Top tips when baking with the kids
1. Outfit
Make sure you look the part – get your chefs hat and apron at the ready! If you don’t have any of these things then a quick dash to the shops will solve the problem. Even better, if you are buying for the kids why not let them choose their own.
chefs hat 
apron
2. Ingredients and Utensils
Get all of the ingredients and utensils ready. Make sure you’ve been to the shops to get everything for the recipe and have these all out on the side ready to use. You can even pre-measure some of the ingredients out into bowls to make the process a little easier.
3. Recipe
Choose the right recipe – you don’t want to pick something too difficult if the kids are helping out. Go for something simple like fairy cakes or biscuits.
4. Prepare for mess
Be prepared to get messy! It’s inevitable especially with kids involved! However, we’re sure you’ll have lots of fun in the process. It’s just the cleaning up afterwards that’s not the fun part.
5. Safety
Safety comes first. Teach the kids about the oven and hobs being very hot. You don’t want them to hurt themselves. Always make sure there is an adult there to supervise.
6. Hygiene
Always make sure you thoroughly wash your hands between different cooking stages and try to keep the surfaces clean to avoid contaminating any of the food.
7. Structure
Provide your child with clear instructions of what you would like them to and where you want them to help out. If they are finding something difficult show them how to do it first and then let them copy you.
8. Familiarity
Make sure you are familiar with the recipe yourself. If your child wants to get involved, try and see if they can read out each step as well. This enables them to learn to follow each one through to completion before the begin the next.
9. Enjoy
Relax and enjoy the moment. Cooking with your children may sound like it’s going to be quite stressful, but try not to worry about the mess as that can be cleared up, and don’t fret if there’s a little bit of egg shell in the batter. It’s not the end of the world. Just remember, you’re teaching them valuable skills as well as spending quality time with them, and they will absolutely love getting involved.
10. Taste test
Once you’ve made your yummy creations, it’s time to taste all of your hard work! 😄
Who knows, one day your child may turn into an avid baker. They will certainly be thanking you then for all of that practice when they were younger.
More great ideas
If you’re a lover of baking, another great idea could be a DIY cake smash with the kids. What’s even better, you can create a photo canvas out of some of the fab photos you took to commemorate the event. A couple of examples are shown below to give you a little bit of inspiration.
The key to a successful cake smash is to make sure you are prepared. Have the scene set up, the backdrop, and cake in place. Ensure you’ve got good lighting for the photos and try to take lots of pictures at quite a fast pace. If you’re using an iphone why not make use of the burst camera option – you can do this by keeping your finger pressed on the capture spot so that your phone then takes a fast succession of photos. You can then pick the best ones to keep.
If you want to read up on doing a DIY cake smash in a little more depth we’ve included a few links below for you to visit: