From the time that my son could understand the word “cook,” he’s been in the kitchen right next to me more nights than not…and now that my daughter’s two, she’s starting to join us. Everyone has their special thing that they do with their kids, and for me it’s talking them through recipes; having them pour in milk or stir in chocolate chips; letting them taste as we go and see that it’s okay to experiment.
It’s less important to me that the food come out perfectly than that they feel confident in the kitchen – I want to make sure they know how to cook, but I also want to make sure they enjoy it. (My reasons for involving them in cooking so much are also selfish: in the kitchen is simply my favorite place to hang out with them, because they’re simultaneously super-engaged and excited.)
One of our weekend-morning traditions is a little dish I made up called “Rainbow Sparklecakes.” Rainbow Sparklecakes, to be clear, are pancakes. But they are pancakes with chocolate-covered, multicolored sesame seeds in them, and if I call them “Rainbow Sparklecakes” my children start bouncing up and down and need to immediately eat all the Sparklecakes, so there you go.
One interesting addition to this particular recipe: since my kids have gotten pickier about food as they’ve gotten older (my son will inhale fish eggs, but refuses peanut butter, while my daughter has declared bread to be a no-fly zone), I try to sneak extra nutrition into their meals wherever I can, and so we recently switched from regular milk to fairlife. If you’ve never heard of the brand before, it’s milk that has been ultra-filtered so that it has more protein and calcium than regular milk, less sugar, and no lactose. (How this works, if you’re curious about the science behind it: the milk is passed through a cold-filtration system that separates it out into its component parts, which are then recombined in more nutritious proportions – so you get the protein and calcium boost without any additives.)
RAINBOW SPARKLECAKES
What You Need:
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 1 ¼ cups fairlife Reduced-Fat Milk
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons butter
- ½ cup multicolored chocolate-covered sesame seeds (you can of course swap in rainbow-colored sprinkles or any rainbow-colored candy if you can’t find the sesame seeds)
What You Do:
- Melt the butter in your microwave or in a small nonstick pot.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl, then slowly pour in the milk, egg, and melted butter. Mix until smooth.
- Pour in the sesame seeds, and stir gently to combine.
- Lightly oil your griddle and heat until a drop of water sizzles on it, then use a large spoon to scoop the batter onto the griddle. Cook until golden on both sides and cooked through.
- Enjoy extra fluffiness thanks to the additional protein in fairlife.
Summary: Cooking with kids is – or at least can be, provided you stay just a little bit zen – both educational and totally fun. And yeah, sometimes accidents happen. But you know what they say about spilled milk.
This post was created in partnership with fairlife. Family photos by Sue Hudelson; product photography by Jordan Reid.
