Christmas is a joyful time that brings the whole family together. Being just around the corner, that means the school holidays are also fast approaching.
As excited as kids get at the prospect of no school, they can easily become bored without enough varied stimulation whilst they’re home. That’s why we’ve put together 3 festive recipe ideas you can bake with your kids. Not only is it a fun activity to do, but baking teaches them some useful skills and it allows you to spend some quality time together – not to mention the yummy treats you get to eat after!
Bulk Ingredients
If you’re planning to do lots of baking with your family over this festive period, don’t forget to bulk buy your ingredients!
Being sure to buy butter in bulk or get wholesale eggs – ingredients you’ll likely use lots – ensures you will have enough of what you need over the winter months without making regular trips to the supermarket, which are often sparse towards Christmas.
Chocolate Brownie Trees
These little treats are sure to go down a treat with everyone in the family – after all, who doesn’t like brownies?
All you need to do is bake your favourite chocolate brownie recipe in a round tin and cut it into triangular slices. Once you have your slices, stick a chocolate finger or half a candy cane into the bottom edge and decorate the surface to look like a Christmas tree. It really is as simple as that!
If you have multiple children, letting each decorate their own Christmas tree brownie is a great way to get everyone involved and allow them the independence to express some creativity (without causing arguments on who gets which one!).
For a healthier alternative, why not try a brownie recipe using avocados?
Gingerbread Reindeer
A firm favourite all year round, but especially at Christmas has to be gingerbread. The smell of gingerbread baking in the oven is one that is hard to beat, filling you with a sense of warmth and comfort.
Gingerbread is one of the easiest biscuits to make, and rolling and cutting out shapes in the dough is a great way to get younger kids involved who aren’t quite old enough to make the dough itself.
You can use any cutter you wish, but to make your gingerbread look like reindeer, you simply need a standard person cutter. All that’s left to do then is to turn it upside down and decorate the head/body to look like a face, the arms to look like ears and the legs to look like antlers.
Don’t forget to use some red icing or smarties for Rudolph’s signature nose!
Mince Pies
The staple Christmas treat: mince pies. Many people enjoy mince pies at this time of year, with them filling the shelves as early as October, but why not make them yourself?
This one is perfect to make with slightly older kids, requiring a bit more skill and concentration. As tricky as pastry can be to make and work with, the sense of accomplishment they will feel after will make them appreciate the taste of their finished mince pies on a whole new level.
To make them more child-friendly, you can substitute the booze that many mincemeat recipes call for for orange juice – you still get a warm and festive flavour without packing too much punch (quite literally)!
Don’t worry, if you buy bulk orange juice, then you can rest assured there will be enough left over for Christmas day mimosas, too!
If you’re planning on baking with your kids this Christmas, Freshways is the wholesale food distributor to buy your ingredients from. Get in touch with us today to learn which ingredients you can buy in bulk and to enquire about placing an order.