Cooking with Kids: Weekend breakfasts to make you smile

Pic: iStock

These are two weekend breakfast activities. The rainbow skewers are good for picnics as well, now that the weather is getting warmer.

Carefully chopping and cutting can be a great learning activity, as well as a good way to get children to eat more fruit. Pushing the cubes of fruit onto the sticks also requires younger family members to master some dexterity.

When you are making the breakfast animals you can experiment and cut triangle ears for a cat, or longer oval ears for a bunny. Peanut butter or chocolate spread can be used to coat the apple slices to make different colours and textures for the noses.

Grapefruit may be a little bitter for some young taste buds and can take a bit of getting used to. Tastes can develop when children have repeated exposure.

Of course, if it is an absolute no, you can omit it or replace it with another fruit, mango chunks are a delicious alternative.

Cute Breakfast Mouse

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

A fun way to learn chopping, and presenting a dish!

Servings

1

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 10 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• a nice creamy bowl of cereal such as porridge or ready brek

• a large apple

• blueberries

• strawberries

• round cookie cutters

Method

1. Ask an adult to cut a few thin slices of apple, ones that are big enough for you to cut with your round cookie cutter. Cut two larger circles to make your ears and a smaller one for the nose.

2. Take a slice of apple from the edge of the fruit that has the skin on it. Cut this into very thin strips to make whiskers. Use a similar piece of apple peel to cut a smaller circle for the nose.

3. Carefully slice a strawberry into round discs.

4. Place the blueberries for eyes and apples slices for ears and nose. Add the strawberries and decorate the nose.

Fruity Rainbow Treats

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

Fun, fruity and colourful!

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 10 mins

Course

 Dessert

Ingredients

• blueberries

• kiwi, skin removed

• pineapple, chunks

• orange, skin removed

• pink grapefruit, skin removed

• raspberries or small strawberries

• wooden sticks

Method

1. Carefully cut the kiwi, pineapple, orange and grapefruit into similar size cubes. Ask an adult to help you.

2. Gently push one of each colour fruit onto a wooden stick, starting with red and working your way through the colours of the rainbow.

Activity: Kitchen science lab

Make a bouncy egg by soaking it in vinegar for two nights. This kitchen experiment has a fun outcome. 

Simply place your egg into a tall glass and pour in enough white malt vinegar to cover it completely. Leave it stand like this for two days. 

If you look closely, you will see tiny bubbles forming on the eggshell this is caused by a chemical reaction. The vinegar is breaking down the calcium in the eggshell. 

Remove your egg after two days. The hard shell will have dissolved or if there is some left it will be easy to rinse off under the tap. You can gently bounce your egg on a tabletop or on a plate. It will feel a bit like rubber. 

It is still liquid further inside so be careful not to bounce it from a height.