In July, Amelia got probably her favorite Little Cooks Co Baking box to date! This box is a monthly subscription box which encourages cooking and baking in the kitchen with your little one – creating a sweet and a savory recipe, using lots of ingredients that are packed right in the box, as well as a few fresh ingredients you need to provide yourself. This month’s box included a delicious raspberry cake, some kale chips, and a craft that Amelia really enjoyed – as well as some seeds and some conversation cards (though we don’t really use these at our household).
The Raspberry Cake was really the star of this box. Amelia spent some time sifting together the dry ingredient, whipping and adding in the wet batter, and then evenly putting them into the two pans. She did most of this without help and just with a bit of guidance as she was so pumped about making a full cake. The majority of the time that the cake baked, Amelia sorted the raspberries out into a pile for decoration (of just the perfect berries) and a pile to turn into the jammy filling, which was cooked over the stove. As she was spending her time sorting, Robin had asked to help with the box and ended up doing the kale chip savory recipe!
The frosting, which was more like a whipped cream, wasn’t whipped enough for our cake (we were just so excited) but it turned out looking perfect anyway. Amelia had added the cooled jam to the middle of the cake, put on the top and squished it out a bit, then poured on the frosting/whipped cream. Despite it being messy, the cake was very moist, delicious, and wasn’t too terrible for you – most of the sugars in these kits are natural sugars, which is a really lovely thing to include. Everyone had such big slices of this cake in the end and the kids spoke about it for days, especially Kai who still asks for it from time to time! I think the mix of berries and sweet cake was just a winner for us.
As for the kale chips, we weren’t really sure how these were going to pan out. Kai will eat almost anything, but Amelia and Robin are a bit more picky, especially when it comes to veggies. This recipe was very easy – we just added olive oil and kale. Robin ripped up the kale, added in the oil and poured over the packet of nutritional yeast. We had never had nutritional yeast before, and after baking off the chips, they tasted quite cheesy in a way, which was good. The kids all tried it and ate far more than I expected, which is a good start! Maybe we can incorporate more kale in the future, thanks to this little taste into what kale would look like in our home.
The craft that came along with this box was a window feature that used dried flowers to create. Amelia found some local flowers and picked some from our back garden and pressed them in a book. After a few nights, they were dried, and we were able to make a “stained glass window” for Pancake’s tower! This craft was simple but cute. We also planted the seeds and have been waiting for them to grow. This box and recipe was really good for our family and we all enjoyed cooking and eating together! Desserts are so fun, and as this one wasn’t too oat heavy, we found it to be a great time.
My older son would love a box like this! He’s always in the kitchen cooking with me. And if it can get him to eat some veggies, too, that’s even better!
Getting the kids to eat veggies is always the main challenge!