Little ones enjoy life’s lessons
COOKERY lessons for children can do so much more than teach them how to cook.
Counting, weighing and developing their knowledge of ingredients are among the skills youngsters can learn while they are making something to eat, but perhaps the most important thing they get out of it is confidence.
Faye Baxter is a cookery teacher and nutritionist who runs courses in Northamptonshire which cater for children as young as two-years-old.
She teaches them by getting them to copy what she does, counting out spoonfuls of flour, measuring cheese or raisins and mixing the ingredients. The youngsters do not go near the oven, Faye does all that, but everything else they do themselves, with a bit of help from their mum or dad or whoever has brought them along. At the end of the session they have made some scones or pizzas or mini quiches or perhaps some gingerbread men.
Faye said the children enjoy getting their hands in the mixture and cutting out animal shapes.
She said: “Children generally quite fancy it, sometimes people come because it’s actually doing something rather than just playing.”
She said some parents like their children to try out a class like this if they are fussy eaters and she has seen some youngsters change their attitude to food because they have made it themselves. The children are not told they have to eat what they have made but a lot of them want to and for a youngster who is a bit reluctant to eat different foods, it can be the encouragement they need.
She said: “It takes the pressure off in the sense that what they are actually doing is making something. It’s a bit of fun, mixing it, counting it out, putting the ingredients in and finding out where they come from.”
The youngsters make everything themselves from scratch including pastry and they are very pleased with themselves when they have produced something that normally an adult would make for them or would be bought in a shop.
Faye said: “It’s a confidence builder, they come out with some very nice cakes or scones and it’s a success if they make something.
“If they make cheese scones it’s not like sitting down to a meal where pressure is on that you eat it, there’s no pressure.”
Faye said the children use healthy ingredients and not very much sugar and it is a chance for them to learn more about the ingredients and how to handle them.
She said: “They are learning where things come from, where the ingredients come from, what it looks like, how it tastes and their dexterity increases.”
The youngsters all get a recipe card of what they have made to take away so they can have a go at making it at home. Faye is running more classes for children at Caroline Chisholm School in Northampton, starting later this month. The classes start at 10am on April 21 and May 7 and 21, June 3 and 16 and July 2.
Faye is also running five-week pre-school cookery courses at Park Avenue Methodist Church Hall starting on Tuesday, May 31 and Wednesday, June 1 at 9.45am. The cost per class at Caroline Chisholm is £8.50. The five-week pre-school course at Park Avenue Methodist Church Hall is £42.50. Faye also runs courses for adults including cooking for weight loss. To find out more about future courses, contact Faye on 07929 556908 or 01604 812800 or email her at faye@craftycooks.co.uk
or visit her website at www.ingredients4health.co.uk
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