Children's cookbooks can be amazing fun! Take a look at our favourites below...
It's no secret that kids absolutely LOVE baking. Mixing, getting messy and licking the wooden spoon are all childhood rites of passage - and let's face it, eating the fruits of their labour at the end is always a highlight to their day too! Good children's cookbooks are essential to those early years of learning to bake, and we've trawled the bookshop to bring you the best of what's on the market at the moment. Take a look at our top ten choices below - and please do get in touch on our Facebook page if you've got any favourites to add!Children's Book of Baking Cakes
By Abigail Wheatley, £9.99 from Usborne
This is an absolute cracker of a book for any kid that's really getting into baking! You'll find a selection of little cake, big cake and tray bake recipes inside, alongside plenty of tips and tricks on techniques and the tools you can use. The best bit? The spiral-bound pages and the wipe-clean cover - it feels durable, and seems like it will put up with any amount of excited use in the kitchen!
Gruffalo Crumble and Other Recipes
Based on the picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, £12.99 from Macmillan
Oh look, oh no, it's a Gruffalo (cookbook)! Using the theme of the much-loved picturebook, this title offers recipes like Caterpillar Treats (chocolate puff pastry treats) and Knobbly Knees (cornflake cakes) - a certain hit with little ones! Though there is a dedicated baking section, the cookbook does also cover breakfast, snack and dinner recipes. We reckon it'd be perfect for younger bakers - around 3 to 5-years-old.
The Best Ever Baking Book
By Jane Bull, £9.99 from DK Children
Perfect for the slightly older child (maybe 5 to 8 or 9-years-old?), this cook book is probably the most colourful and fun-looking one that we've seen! The book uses a very image-led layout - perfect for encouraging kids to have a go at baking on their own (with supervision of course) - and shows them exactly what the process should look like at each step. Recipes vary between cookies and cakes to flans and bread in this thorough introductory cookbook!
Cool Kids Cook
By Jenny Chandler, £14.99, from Pavilion
As well as a hefty baking and desserts section, this book also features some really great advice and information on topics like shopping for ingredients, and what to think about in terms of flavour and taste! It also thoroughly covers safe techniques, and frequently reminds readers of the importance of letting an adult know when they're cooking(!). It feels like a book for the slightly older child (maybe 7-years-old and up) that's ready to start making their own decisions in the kitchen. You never know, you might be enjoying some homemade Irish Soda Bread or a Chocolate and Beetroot Muffin before long!
The Room on the Broom Cookbook
Based on the picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, £12.99 from Macmillan
In a very similar vein to the Gruffalo Crumble and Other Recipes Cookbook, this book uses the characters from Room on the Broom to get younger kids excited about making their own food! From Cheese Wands (puff pastry twists) to Full Moon Pancakes (savoury pancakes), these themed recipes are super-simple and easy to follow with a grown-up helping.
Cooking Step By Step
£13.99 from DK Children
This book feels like a classic DK cookbook - with fun graphics and clear photography, these recipes would be great to bake with a grown-up, or for older children to try on their own! Though there are heaps of light bite and main dish recipes featured, there's a substantial sweet treats and bakes section featuring recipes like Focaccia, Orange Cake, Clever Cookies and Apple Crumble - yum!
The Twitches Bake a Cake
By Hayley Scott and Pippa Curnick, £5.99 from Usborne
Granted, this is by no means a cookbook - but if you're looking for a tool to get kids excited about baking, this could be great! Ideal for those around 7-years-old or just starting to read early chapter books on their own, The Twitches Bake a Cake follows the story of Stevie as she gets a showstopper cake ready for her party, and her toy rabbits Silver and Fig Twitch decide to get in on the action too! Baking and cake decorating really is at the heart of this story, and it's sure to be a hit with any young reader.
My First Cookbooks
By Lotta Nieminen, £49.95 for a box set of 4 books, by Phaidon
We're cheating with the numbers slightly here and have counted all four books separately, but we really have saved the best for last! These titles are interactive books at their most fun, and each takes the reader through the process of making pizza, tacos, pancakes or cookies (depending on which book you've got to hand!). Pull tabs see flour fall into the mixing bow, spin wheels mix all the ingredients together. You can flip over a removable card pancake to cook it on both sides, before serving it up on the plate on the next page. They really are innovative and fun books, designed to get kids excited about cooking without always having to have access to a kitchen and ingredients. Amazing!
