This past month in the JKK program, we have been talking about baking and what ingredients we need to make our favourite desserts and snacks. During March break camp, we baked and decorated some shamrock cookies. We gathered all of our ingredients and got right to work. Our friends got to help add each ingredient to the bowl. When adding each ingredient, they needed to make sure that it was the correct measurement of that ingredient. We needed two separate bowls as we needed one for dry ingredients and one bowl for wet ingredients. “Why can’t we add all the ingredients together?” Kylie asked. “Because when you’re baking you need to separate the wet and dry ingredients so it tastes better.” Educator Nicole answered. We had a friend read each step and what measurements for each ingredient that we needed. When cracking the eggs into the wet ingredients, our friends needed a little bit of help opening the egg once it was cracked. When cracking the second one, a small shell fell into the bowl. “Oh no we need to get it out!” Leo said. “We can use the spoon to scoop it out” one of our friends said. Once we had all of our ingredients in the separate bowls, we mixed them all together with our hand mixer. “It’s not as loud as the mixer I have at home.” Skylar noticed.
After it was done mixing, we took a look at what the dough looked like. “Why is it all crumbly like that?” Aubree asked. “Once we combine it together then it will look like cookie dough,” Educator Nicole answered. So, we put on some gloves and combine it into two balls. We then floured the tables and got out the big rolling pin. At first, we didn’t add any flour onto the rolling pin and the dough stuck to it. “Is the dough too sticky to roll it out?” Rennick asked. “It is a little sticky still so we just need to add more flour.” Educator Nicole said. We added more flour and it rolled out perfectly. We then got our shamrock shaped cookie cutter and away we went cutting out shamrocks for everyone! Once all of the cookies were cut out and placed on a pan, we put them in the oven to let them bake. When they were done, we let them cool for a bit and then we got to decorate them. We made some green royal icing and everyone got their own little cup to decorate their cookie. Some friends thought it was hard to spread the icing on the cookie and asked their friends for help.
Throughout this baking experience the children developed their knowledge on measuring and leveling, problem solving, helping skills, fine motor and gross motor skills. They also worked to develop their communication among their peers and educators as they were having different conversations about what they like to bake and cook at home with their parents. During the experience, we talked about other baking recipes we could do and what we would like to try and the one thing that came up the most was rice crispy squares and chocolate chip cookies for next time!
