Baking is something I have been doing more of recently. I think it is important to cook from scratch sometimes. Yes we all love a good takeaway and don’t cook from scratch all of the time. So on occasion I think it is great to get into the kitchen back to basics.

This is especially lovely to do with your children. Teaching them to cook is great for not just life skills but also maths measuring out the ingredients and checking the amount of time on the things that are being baked in the oven too.

Explaining how food changes with temperature or how certain foods can help our body be healthy provide great lessons in science. While cooking with your child, practice new vocabulary as you describe how food looks, feels, and tastes. Following a recipe from start to finish helps build the skills for planning and completing projects. This is a great skill for anyone to have.

Cooking can make your children try new tastes and explore foods that they might not necessarily do. This helps to build positive associations with food. If they have cooked something they are more inclined to try that type of food as they have been involved in it.

Family meal preparation is a great opportunity to pass down recipes. The family meal can start in the kitchen as you cook together. You also make set menus and plan what you will all cook each day for your meals. This is done easily and the children can help with this choosing the foods they love and enjoy while also trying new foods too. You can tell them that they have to incorporate vegetables and fruit into the meal and dessert and they can think up new ideas to make sure these are included.

Teach children the important lesson of keeping safe while cooking too. Show them how to do things in a safe way. Always supervise children when cooking. Even toddlers can help in the kitchen of course you have to keep them safe but you can give them jobs to do and they will feel a sense of achievement when the recipe is complete and they can have some of the food that they helped cook.

Bake these easy flapjacks with just a few ingredients you should have in your cupboards. They only take around half an hour to bake and they are a great for the children to help with.

Ingredients

250g Porridge oats

125g Butter or margarine

125g Brown sugar or White sugar

2-3 tbsp of honey or golden syrup

Method

Heat the oven to 200C /180C fan/gas 6

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix it all up. You can add anything extra you want such as cherries, chocolate chips etc. Pour into a greased baking tin either as separate pieces or one large one and cut once baked.

Bake for around 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

There you have some great flapjacks that are delicious!