Basis of cake baking 8 year old. Yeah! I realise that I addded recipes in the last few weeks but did not share them in my post blog! I will have to do some catch up posts.
This post has been coming for a while. I decided to write it when my 8 y.o asked to do some biscuits, and because I was busy she had to do them on her own. So she went through cooking books and settled on a recipe which I agree she could attempt to. When she had finished the first stage I helped her for the last part. This is when I realised this was a great recipe to get some key baking skills through to them. Here are two recipes to teach the basis of cake baking for an eight year old child. And when I say that, they are the first doer, your role is only to advise and ensure they have not missed a step (and even if you don’t bake, you will be all right there!).
Your child if not eight? Don’t run away! This approach is suitable for all ages up from eight. For younger children, you would need to be the main doer and probably replace the first recipe below by a simpler shortbread recipe. While I write this I am realising that this recipe is not even on my blog! This is now fixed.
Teaching your 8 y.o baking skills – Recipe 1
LA REINE DE SABA (The queen of Sheba) chocolate cake
Yes, chocolate. If you want to motivate a child in baking, this is definitely one successful way. Now, I have one rule: no eating any from the dough mix while preparing. Once the cake is cooking, the baker is allowed to lick the spatula and bowl!
For those who do not know this cake, this is a light chocolate cake. Generally you bake it in a round tin, but you can also cook it in a rectangular ti to make mouth-bite size cubes. it is not a very thick cake, it handles very well between 3 cm and 6 cm. The thickness depends on what you want it for and the tins you have available.
Why did I chose this recipe?
The recipe teaches to:
- measure ingredients (great math!)
- know about oven temperature for cakes (pretty much right for all cakes)
- prepare the baking tin (it is the same for all cakes)
- melt the chocolate without burning it
- get a smoothly mix of ingredients
- separate egg yolks and whites
- mix of the flour without making lumps
- bring egg whites to snow and fold them in.
The recipe is HERE. And the photo is coming soon! I realised I only had a photo of it when I used it for a crocodile birthday cake!
Teaching your 8 y.o baking skills – Recipe 2
The checker short bread
This is the recipe I discovered with my daughter. The result is nice looking shortcrust biscuits. The chocolate taste is quite light. Those biscuits keep well in a cookie jars for a couple of weeks. You could choose to replace the chocolate with food colorants for other effects.
Why did I chose this recipe?
The recipe teaches to:
- measure ingredients (great math!)
- make shortbread which is used in many sweet desserts (tarts, base for cakes, etc)
- mix and get your hand in the dough (not to be afraid of getting your hand dirty)
- understand that dough needs to rest
- use a rolling-pin and ensure the dough does not stick
- stick dough pieces together
What is great there is that there is room for error: small errors in the measurements and the undertaking will not dramatically affect the outcome.
And the result looks great !
Recipe HERE.
