CHILD’S PLAY

Fun and easy holiday cookies kids will love to bake

“Kids love to bake,” Deanna F. Cook says. “It’s part of a happy childhood. Baking something sweet and spending time with a parent or an older sibling or even by themselves is very joyful for them. It creates wonderful kitchen memories.”

In working on her latest cookbook, Baking Class, the award-winning kids’ book author had nearly 30 junior kitchen helpers. The breads, cookies, cakes and pies that appear throughout its pages were largely made by the budding bakers.

Cook created her baking companion with children ages eight to 12 in mind. Each of the 50 recipes is accompanied by step-by-step photos, clearly illustrating tasks like how to measure ingredients, mix and knead dough, and shape loaves of bread.

Baking is a natural entry point for kids in the kitchen, Cook says. It’s hard to beat the payoff: even a lopsided cookie or collapsed cake makes a fine treat. The craft is also an important life skill, and provides a springboard for education in areas such as science and nutrition.

“Learning how to make anything from scratch is very eye-opening for kids. Baking teaches a lot about kitchen science and the transformation of a liquid into a batter into a solid. And they can learn about where the ingredients come from,” Cook says.

Making edible gifts for the holidays is an ideal time to get kids baking, she says.

Cookies — such as snickerdoodles and coconut macaroons — and homemade quick breads, braided loaves or cinnamon rolls are all portable and tasty options for children to make for their teachers and coaches.

One of Cook’s favourite holiday baking projects for kids is “an edible art project” — making and decorating cookies. They can cut simple sugar cookies into fun shapes and beautify them with tinted buttercream frosting or sprinkles.

“They love the stirring and the cracking of the eggs and the little bit of mess. The dusting of flour in the kitchen and licking the frosting,” Cook says.

“All that good stuff.”

Set up a practice station so kids can master using a pastry bag on parchment or wax paper before moving to the cookies. Recipes excerpted from Baking Class by Deanna F. Cook, Storey Publishing.

PHOTOS: CARL TREMBLAY Snickerdoodles travel well, making them excellent edible gifts for teachers and coaches.

“The book comes with cookie-cutter templates that you can pop out and put right on the cookie dough and trace with a knife,” Deanna F. Cook says. “You can make some fun shapes.”