Half Term *Fun* – Baking with your kids!

Keeping your kids entertained over half-term can be quite a stressful task, especially if miserable weather is keeping you stuck indoors. But how about doing some baking? It’ll definitely seem like a good idea at the time, even if this is pretty much exactly how it’ll go.

RECIPE FOR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

3 large coffees to be drunk by parent before even thinking about starting

225g caster sugar

A ton of patience

300g plain flour

200g of melted butter

1tsp vanilla extract

A dozen quietly muttered swear words

1tsp of baking powder

A pinch of salt

Alcohol to try and numb the pain in the aftermath

1 egg

100g-200g of chocolate chips

METHOD

1. Send your child to wash their hands, knowing full well that no soap or probably even water will touch their skin, though they’ll still manage to cause a small flood in the bathroom that you won’t discover until later.

2. Add the sugar and melted butter in a bowl and mix together. Your child will sneakily lick the spoon when they think you’re not looking.

3. Sift the flour, baking powder, vanilla and salt together. Your child will want to do the sieving and they and most of the kitchen will end up covered in a fine layer of flour as they don’t appear to understand what the word ‘gently’ means, despite you bellowing it at them 28 times.

4. Add the flour etc to the sugar and butter mixture. Your child will probably cough and/or sneeze directly in the bowl at around this point.

5. Add the chocolate chips. This is when you’ll realise that your child has surreptitiously been eating the chocolate chips and there are now only 4 left. 

6. Mix together into a dough texture using your hands. Your child will insist on wanting to do this all by themselves and a third of the mixture will somehow end up in their hair. 

7. Slowly lose the will to live.

8. Add the egg and knead using your hands again (after picking out all of the pieces of egg shell that ended up in the mixture because your child insisted that they wanted to crack the egg into the bowl)

9. Spread some butter onto a baking tray. Your child will probably drop the butter on the floor. At this point you pretty much won’t care.

10. Take some of the dough, roll into ball then flatten a little. Explain through gritted teeth that flattening a little does not mean smashing it as hard as possible with, OH MY GOD ARE YOU USING YOUR SHOE?!

11. Place in the oven and bake at 160C, gas 3 for 10-20 mins. At this point your child will instantly disappear to watch TV, reappearing every minute or so to ask if the biscuits are done yet until they get bored of being told no, not yet.

12. Look around at the utter chaos that once was your kitchen and try not to cry.

13. Slip in the butter that got dropped earlier.

14. Pour yourself a large glass of alcohol and wearily start cleaning up the mess.

15. Completely forget about the biscuits until you smell burning and the smoke alarm goes off.

16. Swear that you’ll never going to do bastard baking with your child ever again. Until next time.