Baking Activity: Waffle Making with Your Children
Delicious Waffles
Believe it or not, cooking is a great educational activity you can do with your children. Start with a recipe of one of your child’s favorite meals. Try to avoid any of their frozen favorites, such as pizza or chicken nuggets. Select something that takes a little bit of time to put together with measuring, mixing, and patiently (or excitedly) waking for it to be done.
Before you begin your cooking lesson with your little one, you might be asking yourself why a non-profit organization that helps families affected by autism is talking about baking. We’ll tell you why. Cooking can help with development and education in a number of ways, as it can:
Make your child feel comfortable while improving or increasing their variety of food choices. It helps peak their interest when they are involved in preparing the meal.
Facilitate their fine motor skills by practicing chopping, pouring, stirring, etc. It also provides hand strength and eye-hand coordination (but keep a close eye on them!).
Facilitate their executive functioning by following a recipe with pictures, preparing the ingredients and checking the food while it bakes.
Facilitate their social-emotional development by building a social connectedness between you and your child.
Build your child’s independence and confidence as well as improving communication and social skills.
Now, let’s get started
Who doesn’t love waffles? Waffles are a fun recipe to make that includes measuring, counting and making shapes. It’s very important to remember to set up a safe environment for your child and that you have already all the ingredients and utensils within reach before starting to cook. After you have all of that ready you can start mixing it up.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 cups of flour
1 ¾ cups of milk
1 tablespoon of white sugar
4 teaspoons of baking powder
¼ teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat the waffle iron.
Beat eggs in a large bowl until fluffy.
Beat in flour, milk, vegetable oil, sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla, until the mix becomes smooth.
Spray the preheated waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray.
Pour mix onto hot waffle iron and you can try making different shapes.
Cook until golden brown. (it usually takes about 5 minutes).
You can add strawberries or berries on top depending on your likes.
Serve and enjoy!
I hope this recipe inspires you to try this fun experience and cook with your child. We recommend taking a look at Pinterest for different recipes, ideas and visuals you can use with your child. Start here!