This coming week sees the launch of a brand new cook book for children aged 1-4 years old; Tickle Fingers Cookbook by Annabel Woolmer is a recipe book with lots of ideas for getting toddlers and pre-schoolers to join in with cookery - one of our very favourite pastimes.
Lara and Holly have joined me in the kitchen to help prepare food from the very first days that they could sit upright and grasp a spoon. Cookery with children is so rewarding - messy, occasionally stressful, but packed full of learning opportunities and chances to explore tastes and textures. The start of Annabel Woolmer's book spends quite some time talking about all the good reasons why to encourage kids to take part in cooking their own dishes as well as explaining some of the skills and techniques needed to make it as stress-free and fun as possible. The first part of the book also talks a little about nutrition which is incredibly important to help set your kids on the right path in life.
But the best parts of the Tickle Fingers Cookbook are the recipes. There is nothing ground-breaking in here but plenty of simple yet tasty dishes suitable for first experiments in cookery for smaller people and then, later on in the book, more adventurous dishes for older children who have got the hang of some of the important skills such as measuring and mixing.
There are 60 recipes in the Tickle Fingers Cookbook and they've all been thought through to avoid complexity and to emphasise the fun.. what toddler doesn't enjoy sorting, mixing, pouring and measuring? None of the recipes require a sharp knife, or use of the hob and there is no raw meat that needs prepping so most of these recipes can be done by small hands with little adult intervention.
While Lara and Holly may be a little older than the target audience for this book, they both found recipes in it that they liked the look of. Holly's two favourites so far are a chocolate cake recipe and a really simple naan bread recipe which was awesome!
The Tickle Fingers Cookbook by Annabel Woolmer is available from Penguin Random House in hardcover or Kindle edition from the 3rd November.
