As the days grow shorter and cooler, we start looking for more indoor activities at our house. I don’t know about you, but I can only play so many rounds of Candyland before I start to feel like I’m losing it a little. Admittedly, I’m not a fantastic cook. But I pride myself on being a halfway decent baker. Making cookies for friends (or ourselves) is always a well-received winter activity. Find five recipes for baking with kids listed below. These recipes lend themselves to help from tiny hands. (Please note, these are not my recipes. Only ones I’ve tested and liked!)
Sparkly Chocolate Snickerdoodles
Snickerdoodles are my husband’s favorite cookie, but I’ve never been a big fan. I hold tightly to the belief, however, that anything can be improved by adding chocolate to it. Turns out? Snickerdoodles are no exception. My kids (ages 5 and 2) love helping roll the balled dough in the cinnamon and sugar mixture. The short baking time means we don’t have to wait long to enjoy the spoils of our hard work.
Carmelitas
These do require a decent amount of time post-cooking to set up and firm. This means they’re not great for the impatient among us. Older kids can help stir and melt the caramels. And younger ones can get in on the fun of layering the ingredients. This recipe makes a fairly large batch, so they’re a great alternative to brownies for parties and get-togethers.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies (Gluten Free)
These have a super short ingredient list and will introduce you to that magic known as dark chocolate peanut butter. Mixing the ingredients is a great task — even for little ones. And older kids can help roll the dough into balls to put on the cookie tray.
Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies (Gluten & Dairy Free)
When breastfeeding my daughter, I adhered to a dairy and soy free diet because of her allergies. These cookies became my go-to treat because they checked all my boxes: deliciously rich chocolate flavor and easy to make. And I even get to use my Kitchen Aid mixer! Kids will love getting to operate the mixer and rolling the dough in the powdered sugar before baking.
Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies
As long as you supervise the melting and mixing of the ingredients on the stove top, these are cookies that your older kids can make all by themselves, since they don’t require an oven. Younger ones can help with scooping the cookies out onto the waxed paper to cool and harden.
Share your favorite holiday recipes for baking with kids in the comments!
