Creating in the Kitchen with Little Cooks Co

Gifted item

Over the last few weeks or so we have got much better at making and creating in the kitchen. D can make a loaf of really good banana bread with little help from me, and E really likes helping out with cakes and other bits and pieces. We have made simple buns, lemon shortbread and a few other things in recent weeks. They’ve also been helping me peel and chop veg for soup and lasagne.

We were recently sent a box from Little Cooks Co to try out. Little Cooks Co is a subscription based box that is sent monthly. Happily it’s letterbox friendly so no having to head to your local sorting office if you’re not in on delivery day. Ours arrived a week or two ago, and I’ve been saving it for a ‘rainy day’ when I knew we would be in the house longer than anticipated.

The box comes nicely packaged and contains all the dry ingrediens you need to make the recipe – in our case lemon and poppy-seed balls. For ours we needed to add, honey, lemon and butter.  The ingredients are all packaged up and clearly marked and there’s a nice insert that gives you the receipe details. D read through this as we gathered the additional ingredients we needed and we worked through the recepe together.

The children all enjoyed making these lemon and poppy-seed balls, and it isn’t something we would ordinarily make. They enjoyed whizzing the ingredient together and adding the various bits in before making the little balls up, ready to cool.

The lemon and poppy-seed balls are really tasty and even D, who doesn’t usually like nuts, tried these. They’re a nice snack and the lemon gives a nice added sweet kick.

Included in the box is also another recipie (the one we had was a veggie nugget which we are going to try this weekend). I like the sweet and savory elements and it was a good opportunity to get the children to think about other things we could add into these two recipes and we will definitely be doing the lemon and poppy-seed balls again – the children are keen to add in orange next time rather than lemon.

What I really liked about the Little Cooks Co box was that it was all really well set out; the ingredients are all clearly marked and the recipe cards and written really clearly, easy enough for D (aged 6) to read and follow. There was some help required by me; mostly the melting of butter, grating of the lemon rind and demonstrating how to roll the mixture into balls but I could pretty much leave them to do this, with a little oversight from me. Even H (aged2) was able to get involved and he enjoyed adding the glaze to the lemon and poppy seed balls.

One of the things I am keen is for the children to have the ability to cook and make things in the kitchen. I don’t profess to be the greatest cook in the world, but I can make a decent array of meals and I am confident enough to try making most things. I want the children to know how to cook meals and the such from scratch and getting hands on at a young age is the way to do that. I want them to understand how their food comes together. The Little Cooks Co box is the first step into doing this. It totally gives the children that little burst of confidence that they can create their own snacks and meals.