Guest Post: Hygge Baking!

Here at Sarah’s Little Stars, we love to bake.

The children love the independence that it brings to their morning or afternoon.

We bake so much that the children can often do most of the steps without asking for an adult’s help. 

Watching the children work as part of a team is one of my favourite parts of our week. Someone might say “me do eggs” and an older child might say “there’s 4 eggs xxxx, so we can we all have  a turn!” And the little one is then seen counting the eggs and shouting “Yes”- the excitement on their face is just priceless.

From time to time the children will  often give me or my assistant Claire a job todo, “can you clean this up Claire?”, “Sarah, is the oven on?”, “Claire can you help xxxx put the flour in whilst I’m stirring?”

They might not be the most exciting jobs in the kitchen that morning or afternoon but its just lovely that they want to involve us in their baking.

Baking covers a range of skills

- Risky play ( using the oven/whisk/grating tools/ knife etc- knowing when to ask for help)

- Maths (counting food items, measuring out ingredients, setting the oven to the correct temperature etc)

- Social and emotional (working/connecting together as a team regardless of age, turn taking etc)

- Speech and language (speaking to each other, using old and learning new words)

- Science (all the children no here that the magic powered (baking powered) makes the cakes rise)

- Literacy (reading, using photos or the yellow door baking process stones to understand the next step)

-Physical  development (grating, chopping ingredients, kneeding the bread dough, cracking eggs etc)

The fun and learning doesn’t stop once their bake is in the oven as the children enjoy helping with cleaning the table , loading the dish washer or wash up in a washing up bowl, putting the equipment away.

We get many of our recipes from mine & the children’s families or we use our favourite recipe book “Scandikitchen-  FIKA & HYGGE”

Types of baking the children love to bake here are-

- Carrot cake

- Cheese straws

- Lemon drizzle cake

- Baking fresh bread

- Banana bread

- Hot cross buns

- muffins (savoury or sweet)

- Birthday cake (Victoria sponge)

- Oat cookies

The children are not the only ones learning when we bake. Me and Claire are always looking for new ways to make our Hygge baking more interesting for the children and two of the things I’ve discovered that I can’t wait to introduce to the children are:

1- Pinched from my dear friend  Sam from Sam Goldsworthy childminding - allowing the children to pick what they want to bake from two recipes. The children write their name or leave a mark under the picture that they want to bake that morning and i just love that idea.

2- apologies as i can’t remember the account i saw it on but asking the children to bring in one special ingredient from home for the bake the next day

Both of these ideas are amazing and brilliant for the children’s knowledge and understanding, it also encourages literacy/speech and independence.

But for me and my little stars, the best part of baking isn’t licking the bowl or spoon, it is seeing the children eat what they have made for snack/pudding that day or showing their parents what they have made that morning or afternoon when they come to collect.

Follow Sarah Davies on instagram at @sarahs_littlestars