Cooking with kids

Teaching kids about food
An appreciation of food and where it comes from is key to kids taking not just an interest in their health but also in their environment and the impact we all have on it every day. Every day you have a chance to raise your kids’ awareness of their diet and what they eat.

What do you cook with kids?
Kids love baking and getting their hands busy. Mixing up flour is a fairly safe activity (it might take a little cleaning up afterwards though). Making dough for pizza is simple and most kids from about age five should be able to do it.

Our simple recipe for Margherita Pizza will keep little hands busy for a while and you can use that time to prep some veg. Then let them choose their toppings and you’re ready to pop them in the oven (the pizzas, not the kids).

Baking cupcakes with kids
Cooking pizza is fun but nothing beats baking cupcakes (if you can get RSPCA Assured eggs). Small and delicious, cupcakes are simple to make and you can’t go wrong (famous last words). You can also let the kids get creative with the decorating. Give it a try and see how your little ones get on making our chocolate cupcakes.

How do you involve children in cooking?
Cooking is a great way to get your kids working together and it doesn’t matter if they are different ages; the older ones can handle the more tricky tasks while the younger ones get their hands (and faces) sticky and gooey.

But there’s more to kitchen time with the kids than just cooking and getting messy. You can also teach them to be mindful of hazards around them, such as knives and hot things. By teaching them to spot dangers, they will be better prepared to avoid them in the future.

Please be extra careful around the kitchen with children. It’s a good idea to run a bit of risk analysis before you get started and make sure there’s nothing lying around that could cause an accident.

Turning cooking with the kids into lessons
As every chef knows, cooking is all about timing and by getting your kids involved in the kitchen you can start making them think about time management and sticking to a schedule.

And who knows, they might even start to appreciate what you’re doing when you’re juggling six pans at dinnertime every evening.

Cooking can also be a useful opportunity for a maths lesson. Your kids will need to weigh out and measure the ingredients and they will also need to practice arithmetic as they scale recipes up and down for the number of people eating.

It’s not just maths! By getting kids to read recipes, they will also have to practice reading and following instructions. It’s a great way to improve their written comprehension in a practical and fun way.

While following recipes is all well and good, cooking is as much about self-expression as it is about sticking to the guidelines. A little more of this, an extra pinch of that, ok not too much, but it’s all in the name of creativity.

What can I cook with preschoolers?
While under-fives may have satchelfuls of enthusiasm, they might not be the best cooks. But with a bit of help, they should be able to have a go at rock cakes, raspberry and white chocolate muffins and chocolate cupcakes.  

Halloween is still months off but our bat brownies are fun and simple to make, as are our ghost cupcakes with chocolate frosting.​

Make your cooking RSPCA Assured
If you do get busy baking with your little ones in the kitchen, be sure to choose RSPCA Assured eggs and RSPCA Assured milk which is available from M&S.

About the author

Jodie Adam

Jodie is RSPCA Assured's Digital Communications Manager. 

Back to top