Whether your children are learning the baking basics, enjoy baking regularly or are potential future Bake Off contestants, baking with kids is so much fun. I have baked with all of my kids over the years and not only is it a lovely thing to do with your kids but it is great skill to teach them too.
My daughter is quite a confident baker now, she has always loved baking and particularly through lockdown, she baked at least once a week and she now weighs out all her own ingredients and follows recipes with very little guidance from me. She loves it and I love watching her develop her independence in the kitchen and I especially like the end results, which are always delicious.
Nadiya Hussain is one of my personal cooking heroes. I loved watching her in the Great British Bake Off in 2015 and I have found her journey since then really inspiring. There is something infectious about her cooking style and her passion and many of her recipes have become regular favourites in our house.
One of her latest projects is to create a range of baking sets for children called Nadiya Hussain’s Bake me a story. There are three styles: Deluxe, Savoury and Simple. Each set contains brightly coloured cooking utensils for children but also special recipe cards from Nadiya’s new book which will give the children the confidence to bake from scratch.
When asked why she wanted to create a baking set just for children Nadiya says ‘I love the colours and the easy to use and clean utensils. Everything is designed to be multi purpose and safe, kids can cook like an adult . These new baking sets are all about giving kids confidence to say this is MY stuff, I CAN cook and I CAN bake.’
We were sent the Deluxe Set to review which is suitable for children aged 4+. My daughter is 10 but she absolutely fell in love with the set and loved that not only were the utensils in the “best colours ever” but they were all really great to use. She has made it very clear that they are all for her to use during her regular baking sessions and I am not allowed to borrow them.
The Deluxe Set costs around £25 and provides all the tools needed to bake the six recipes that are included in the box. The Deluxe set contains:
- a whisk
- spatula
- rolling pin
- 12 silicone cup cake cases
- a sieve
- 3 cookie cutters
- a mixing bowl (with a handy spout to pour safely and avoid spills after mixing)
- measuring spoons
- an apron
- six recipe cards
The quality of all of the utensils are excellent and we particularly liked the cookie cutters have a plastic cover around one of the edges to make them super safe for little hands.
The six recipes included with the set are all easy to make and sound delicious, but my daughter wanted to have a go at the zebra cake and I am very glad she did as it was amazing. She changed the almond essence in the recipe for vanilla and created a vanilla and chocolate loaf cake with the most amazing chocolate icing, toped with swirls of white chocolate. I can honestly say it was one of the best cakes I have tasted for a very long time and we have already agreed that she can make it again very soon.
We really love the set, it is perfect for young bakers of all ages and it is lovely for them to have their own tools to use in the kitchen that are just like the utensils they see adults use. I know that my daughter will get a lot of use out of her set and anything that inspires her to do more baking is fine with me. With Christmas around the corner, this would be a prefect gift idea for the young bakers in your life and it might just inspire them to bake something amazing.
You can buy Nadiya Hussain’s Deluxe Baking Set here.
If you would like to bake Zebra Cake for yourself, here is the recipe:
- r the cake
- 175g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
- 175g caster sugar
- 225g self-raising flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 3 medium eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 ½ tbsp. cocoa powder
- For the icing
- 25g unsalted butter
- 15g cocoa powder, sifted
- 2 tbsp milk
- 100g icing sugar
- 25g white chocolate
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C fan / gas mark 6.
- Lightly grease a 900g loaf tin, and line the base of the tin with a strip of baking parchment, letting it overhang at both ends so you can pull the cake out after its baked.
- To make the cake mixture, put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a bowl and beat until well combined.
- Transfer half the cake mixture into a separate bowl. Stir the almond extract into the mixture in one of the bowls.
- Mix the cocoa powder with 2 tablespoons of hot water to make a paste. Add this to the other bowl and mix thoroughly.
- Randomly spoon dollops of each mixture into the prepared tin until both mixtures are finished. Smooth the top to make it level.
- Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes.
- The cake should spring back when touched.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
- For the icing
- Melt the butter in a small pan, then add the cocoa. Stir and cook gently for 1 minute, then stir in the milk and the icing sugar and take the pan off the heat. Leave the mixture to cool completely, then spread it over the top of the cake.
- Melt the white chocolate and dollop it on top of the icing. Run the tip of a skewer through the dollops to give the icing a ripple effect and leave it to set.
Disclaimer – We were sent Nadiya’s Deluxe Baking Set for the purpose of this review, all opinions are my own.
