With Mother’s Day just around the corner, what better way for kids to show
their love for Mum than by helping out in the kitchen and making brunch
for her?
Sharon Maloney
shares her child-friendly recipes and tips.
Let's do
brunch
O
ne of my earliest memories is
of being given a new frying
pan when I was three by my
grandmother. She taught
me how to fry an egg, bake bread and
make cakes. It triggered a life-long love
for cooking. Not long after, my brother
and I were roped into helping prepare
vegetables and wash rice by my mother
for family meals. That was it – we were
then often found frying, baking and
chopping away, learning to make our
own specialities for the family. Cooking
with your child can be a nice way to
bond – it is often said that parents and
children alike open up and chat more
freely whilst occupying themselves with a
simple task like chopping or mixing.
Playing around with food is one
of life’s greatest pleasures and I am
a firm believer in involving kids in
preparing meals early on in life. From
my own experience of learning to
cook, teaching my own child and
seeing friends’ children cook, it is clear
to see that it benefits kids to have a
healthy appreciation for the amount
of preparation that goes into a meal
and to see where their food comes
from. Even when kids get to handle
the sticky, gooey, raw, oozy stuff
while cooking, there comes a morbid
fascination and the urge to touch.
Very young children can get
involved and can wash and arrange
food items; they can help set the table
and place dishes. Baking is always
a lovely introduction to the kitchen,
learning to measure out ingredients
and stirring up goodies for cakes,
muffins and bread. Mature and careful
five- to six-year-olds can take up knife
skills with guidance – I gave my son
a normal table knife to use on soft
vegetables and fruits like mushrooms,
cucumbers and strawberries. From
there, it’s only a short hop to the stove
top, learning to gently poach, boil or
pan fry ingredients under a watchful
parental eye. Once they’ve mastered
that, there is not much else stopping
them from creating a feast! And who
knows? Being exposed to kitchen skills
might just make your little one the next
junior Masterchef!
Here are some of my favourite
brunch recipes that would make a
perfect start to Mother’s Day – and
they are all child-friendly (with a teeny
bit of parental guidance…).
Basic breakfast muffins
Little ones can help measure, pour and
stir ingredients, while older ones should
be able to manage all parts of this
recipe, even spooning the mixture into
paper cases and placing them in the
oven (with oven gloves and a parent
standing close by).
Ingredients
• 2 cups flour (if using self-raising, then
only add 1 tsp of baking powder) –
for a nice, savoury version, you can
use half cornmeal and half flour for
cornbread muffins
• ½ - ¾ cup of sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup of buttermilk (I’ve also used
plain yoghurt, or milk soured with
1tbsp of vinegar to make a buttermilk
substitute – thank you to Pioneer
Woman for the tip!)
•
cup of vegetable oil, or melted
butter
• 1 cup of any additional optional
ingredients, such as walnuts, dark
chocolate chunks, mashed banana,
raspberries, coconut.
Method
Preheat the oven to 400F/200C, and
put muffin cases into a muffin tin. Stir
together dry ingredients in a large
bowl. Add wet ingredients and the
optional ingredients and stir just until
moistened. Don’t over-mix it. You want
all the ingredients just combined. Place
a good sized dollop of the mixture into
muffin cases, as much or as little as
you like, but be warned that anything
that goes to the rim of the case will
likely overspill and burn. Bake for 15-25
minutes or until high and golden brown.
This makes 12-18 muffins, depending on
the size of your muffin pans and cases.
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