Some of my best childhood memories involve baking with my mom or my grandma.
As a teacher, I do after-school baking programs with students and the time I spend with my nieces often involves us baking together.
While these children are growing up in a different, more technology-driven world, baking retains its appeal as a hands-on, creative, focused activity that can yield delicious results.
If you are ready to begin making treats and memories with the special child or children in your life, the first step is choosing a recipe.
An important consideration in choosing a recipe is whether it is age appropriate.
If you are working with a young child, or if this is your first experience baking with an older child, starting simple is best.
There are cookbooks available that are geared specifically to children, but plenty of other recipes are suitably easy.
Read through several, paying attention to how many ingredients there are and what kind of measuring will be needed, what kind of equipment will be required, any potential safety concerns, and the degree of accuracy required.
For example, starting with a no-bake cookie that can be spooned out in random lumps and left to set up is much less stressful with a young child than trying to shape dough into one-inch balls and put them two inches apart on a baking sheet! Next, consider which parts of the recipe can be done independently and which parts of it will need support from you.
You want a recipe that will involve your helper(s) as much as possible, even while recognizing that there will need to be more support in the beginning.
Think about how you might break a step into component parts, if doing so means sharing a task instead of doing it yourself while the child or children look on.
For example, a young child can hold a measuring cup as you scoop flour into it and explain why you are doing it this way.
You can work together to level it off with a straight edge and then the child can independently add it to the other ingredients.
Soon measuring flour will become one of the steps that can be done without your help.
Select recipes with mostly steps that children can do on their own and steps that can be shared with you.
Avoid recipes with too many steps that children can only watch you do.
A final consideration in choosing a recipe is the unique traits or personality of your helper(s).
One of my nieces has no problem getting messy - in fact, the messier the better - while the other wants to wash her hands the moment they have anything at all on them.
When making a treat that involved shaping a rather sticky dough, she wanted to wash her hands after each one, even though I tried to reason with her that it made more sense to wait until the end.
I quickly learned to work within their comfort zones, divvying up the steps accordingly.
With a little time spent together in the kitchen, you will find how a child's attention span, willingness to try new things, attention to detail, ability to learn through mistakes, and many other individual attributes influence his or her enjoyment of baking with you.
Your recipe choices will then be informed by this growing awareness.
Your experiences baking together will be off to a good start if you take the time to choose a recipe carefully, keeping these suggestions in mind.
For additional tips, I invite you to read more of my Ezine articles on Baking with Kids.