Monkey loves helping to cook at the moment. He loves putting his pinny and on and it is generally Daddy who he helps in the kitchen while I am looking after Little Miss. They have done all sorts, Monkey is learning to peel and chop vegetables and he is fascinated by “fire” (the hob) though he knows to stay well back from it, and the oven. He just wants to “have a look see!”
We are really encouraging this as it is getting him so involved with foods and helping with his fussy eating. Plus he and Daddy have a lot of fun cooking and baking together. At the weekend we decided that they could do some christmas themed baking. Someone had bought us some Christmas themed silicone baking tins last year and we got them out to have a bake.
They stuck to our favourite, simple sponge cake recipe – with one variation. Because I can’t eat dairy at the moment (Little Miss seems to have a hopefully temporary lactose intolerance, reacting badly if I have even the tiniest amount of milk or cheese) we used dairy free spread Pure Sunflower spread. This is’;t a sponsored post or anything but this worked really well so I thought it was worth mentioning. There was a slightly different taste to our normal sponge but I don’t think you would notice unless you knew, if that makes sense? So it was lovely and we now have a recipe for a dairy-free cake!
So anyway here is the recipe we used. This is enough for a small sponge cake, and was the perfect amount for our 4 silicone cake tins.
Dairy Free Sponge Cake Recipe
4oz Self-Raising Flour
1tsp baking powder
4oz Pure Dairy Free Margarine (or Stork/Butter)
4oz Caster Sugar
2 Large eggs
2-3 drops vanilla essence
Preheat the oven to 170º
Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk, until smooth and light. In these tins we cooked for 20 mins, It should be golden and bounce back if gently pressed in the middle.
Yup it’s that simple! Perfect for baking with a toddler and Monkey does love to be involved now, rather than just eating all the ingredients like he used to.
Once the cakes had cooled, Monkey and Daddy had fun decorating them with a bit of water icing and some sparkly bits from the baking cupboard. Didn;t they do a fab job?
They were really tasty and it was so simple to do.
Do your kids like being involved in the kitchen?
Thank you for sharing a dairy free recipe – you don’t see them very often.
This is great! I have been starting to get my son in the kitchen a little more, in fact I posted about it a few weeks back! We are yet to bake a cake so I will try this with him on the weekend. #letkidsbekids
This is such a fun activity to do! I must try baking with my toddler some time. The decorated cakes look lovely 🙂 #letkidsbekids
Monkey looks like he was having a wonderful time helping back the cakes – love how pleased he looks at the finished iced versions which look very yummy. Good tip about using the dairy-free spread to produce a dairy-free sponge too.
They look wonderful! That’s a brilliant idea – I’d love to bake with my toddler 🙂 I need to get some of those baking trays 🙂 #tinseltuesdays http://www.mamamim.com
This is great and so much fun! Love that they are dairy free, we only do dairy free in our house too (I’m lactose intolerant) xx
These look great. I also have a very fussy eating toddler and try to do baking and cooking with her as much as possible to try and encourage her to try new things. It looks like your little monkey had lots of fun making and decorating these
Fab looking christmassy cakes there. It looks like Monkey really got stuck into the baking and had fun.
Thanks for sharing #LetKidsBeKids
Good job, Monkey! My LittleOne’s love baking as well, though Dad and I end up eating everything after they take a piece.
#LetKidsbeKids
My kids love helping in the kitchen too and I think it is a great way to help get over fussiness. I find that if they have made something they are far more likely to eat it so it is a win win situation! Love the look of these cakes and glad you have found dairy-free baking easy! You would never know that things are made from magarine rather than butter (on the whole)…
Love this idea. We made Christmas biscuits today with our cookie cutters but never would’ve thought to make a sponge cake in them. We will definitely be giving this a go 🙂 #ToddlerApprovedTuesday
They do look really good, and great that its a dairy free cake too. #tinseltuesday
Aww what cute moulds and the cake looks lovely. Very impressed with monkeys interest in food. Puts me to shame oops 😉 #TinselTuesdays
I love the silicone mould idea they look great. I am impressed that you let Monkey peel the veg, I have only just let my 5 year old use the cheese grater unassisted!! let alone the veg peeler, maybe I should ask if she wants to help tonight at tea time, she does lay the table and do a bit of chopping with a table knife though. #letkidsbekids
They did a great job. I’m not a big fan of baking but I made some biscuits with Fran last week and we had the most fun, so I will give it another go x
I love your baking tins, I think they did a great job with decorating. My little one loves to bake with her daddy too.
What a clever boy! Beautiful looking cakes, I expect they tasted just as good as they look!
Thanks for linking #toddlerapprovedtuesday
Yum! This has just reminded me we have some of this trays in the cupboard, I’ll have to get them out!
Thanks so much for linking up to #ToddlerApprovedTuesday. Don’t forget both me and Leandra are joint hosting this time round and we are keeping the link up open until January 1st so if you have any other amazing posts to share feel free!
These are brilliant! Monkey did a brilliant job of the decorations too.
I hope you’ll come along and link up with #LittleChefs this week. It opens tomorrow (Thursday) 😉
Can’t wait for my little one to be old enough for such baking fun 🙂
#letkidsbekids
Perfect, easy sponge cake recipe for the kiddos to attempt. We use Pure as well; it works really well when you need a substitute for butter.
The cakes look fab – I love those silicone moulds! Most of our baking is dairy free too, as my husband can’t have dairy – we use the same spread (pure sunflower) in the place of butter and most of the time it works perfectly!
They look great 🙂 I don’t do much baking myself but that sounds like a straightforward enough recipe that even I could manage! I know my little girl would love to do more things like this, it’s a new year’s resolution to involve her more in the kitchen! #tinseltuesdays
It is a great, simple recipe which is fab for toddlers so you should give it a go with her 🙂 xx
Lucas says – I reckon Monkey has a future as a master baker. These look VERY yummy……. Thanks for linking up to #minicreations
They are fab, we’ve been making Christmas biscuits over the past few days-first lot were eaten before they made it to the tree! Love these festive cakes! Thanks for linking up to #tastytuesdays x
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