What’s better than a cute craft made by your child? A cute craft made by your child that you can eat, that’s what. Most kids like to cook. When you are baking cookies or cakes, they want to help. And no I don’t mean just licking the batter bowl. Strap a kid-sized apron on them, grab a stool and get ready for some fun family time.
Edible crafts are a hit with family members, teachers and friends too, so you can never make too many. Here are some ideas for edible crafts that your kids can help you to make.
Chocolate is a good choice for treats all year ’round. For the chocolate lovers in your life, create chocolate stirrer spoons. These spoons can be used in hot cocoa or coffee for extra sweetness. To create your sweet stirrers, you’ll only need a few ingredients and cleanup is a snap.
First, pile a bunch of plastic spoons with melted semi-sweet chocolate and let them cool. Then wrap the tops of the spoons in colorful bags or festive cellophane and tie with a twist tie. The chocolate spoons can be added to gifts of coffee, mugs, kitchen baskets, or placed in Christmas stockings.
Candy canes can decorate your tree or you can decorate them and give them away. Turn that candy cane into a reindeer by adding pipe cleaners, a nose, and felt ears. Lay them down and glue a box of candy on top to create a sleigh. Take several different flavored candy canes and tie them with a wire bow to create a candy cane bouquet.
Enlist your child’s help when baking holiday cookies too. Red hot candies or M&M’s can be added to make faces on Santa or reindeer cookies. Christmas tree cookies can be frosted with green icing and candy sprinkles for lights.
Christmas is the time that many bakers make gingerbread houses. Gingerbread kits contain everything needed to bake and assemble the house. Kids will need your help to put the pieces together, but they can add the icing, gumdrops, and other candies to the house. Covering the gingerbread house with a protective coating will help preserve it over the Christmas holiday. If the kids decide to eat it, forget about the coating and dig in.
An alternative to gift tags would be to create cookie gift tags. The cookies are baked and then a hole is made in the top center while they are still warm. The recipients name is written in frosting on the cookie and attached to the gift with curly ribbon. To keep the cookies fresh, seal the cookie tags in plastic bags after they are attached to the top of the gifts. Wait until the night before Christmas to attach them so the ants don’t enjoy them first.
Food crafts are tasty and oh so much fun to make. Creating them gives kids a chance to get in the kitchen and learn all about the art of baking and allows you to relieve yourself from some of the stress that all that cooking can cause when you are doing it alone.
