Scroll down for a holiday gift for you (12 recipes!) and info about baking with me in 2026!
So my intentions to write about cooking with kids each week after our sessions kinda got waylaid with, well, life! But don’t worry – we’ve had some amazing sessions since we prepared that excellent ratatouille back in November! Here’s the scoop!
For our second session, we prepared Cauliflower Mac and Cheese – a Jamie Oliver recipe (but I’ve got my own variation also which I love!). There was a lot to do for the little chefs… Roughly chopping cauliflower…
Dicing vegetables…
Making breadcrumbs…
And mixing our cheesy goodness into the cooked cauliflower and pasta…
Everyone went home with a little bag of the “gratin” topping which was breadcrumbs, parsley, garlic and olive oil to sprinkle on just before baking!
Apparently this was a huge hit that evening!
The following week, we baked 120 cookies (yes, in under and hour!) for the Our Place Community of Hope Holiday Dinner.
The school’s community service programme supports Our Place every other Thursday throughout the school year. We made Cranberry Oat Cookies in June for the Our Place meal, and they were such a hit that they were requested again! Students measured, weighed, stirred and worked collaboratively to make 120 cookies (exactly!) in under 40 minutes!
(double-checking our quantity!)
Get the recipe for Cranberry Oat Bars here! The kids made a cookie version for ease of serving this week but this is the original recipe!
For our last session of the term, we worked with choux pastry – basically because we had all the ingredients on hand and I’d submitted my expenses already – didn’t want to buy groceries! True story! Plus, we made two fun variations on one recipe that are perfect for holiday entertaining!
Choux pastry is easy to make because it only has a few ingredients – flour, butter, milk, eggs. We made two different versions – gougères (with some grated cheese) and chouquettes (with pearl sugar – I get mine from Flavourfull here in Toronto but you can find it online [<<< affiliate link] too).
The gougères are a fabulous thing to make and freeze before you bake them and have on hand over the holidays -you can bake them from frozen (they take a few minutes longer) and are the BEST thing to serve last-minute, unexpected guests!
You can pipe these out on a baking tray to bake but we used scoops to ensure even amounts of dough and therefore, even baking. It’s a bit sticky but it works a treat! Here’s a set of 3 scoops very much like the ones I have (<<< affiliate link but I can’t live without my scoops!).
It was a regular production line for the chouquettes – one child scooped, one eggwashed the dough and one put the pearl sugar on top (an excellent activity to keep little hands busy!).
The result?
Perfection – and most of these didn’t even make it home, I’ll bet!
That’s it for cooking club for 2025 but we’ll be back in January! Stay tuned!
Meanwhile…
Looking for baking inspiration for the holidays? Get ALL of my “12 Days of Holiday treats” recipes in printable format!
That’s right – I’ve complied ALL the “12 days of Holiday Treats” recipes into a folder with printable recipes for easy reference. All the blog posts with extra info are linked in the recipes but if all you want is the recipe, here you go!
Click HERE to access the recipes! Happy baking!
Looking for baking inspiration in 2026? Take a class with me!
If you’re in Toronto, or know someone who is, here is my early 2026 baking class lineup!
January 17 2026: La Galette des Rois – a French holiday tradition
February 14 2026: St Valentine’s Day Baking
April 4 2026: Le goûter – classic French after-school snacks
Read more and register here! Use HOLIDAY for 15% off registration!
That’s it for this week! Have a great weekend!
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Buy my books! In the French kitchen with kids and French Food for Everyone: le goûter (after school snacks), le dîner (dinner) and le petit déjeuner (breakfast) are out now!
Click here for details and how to order!
Yum!
Such a lovely cooking-with-kids recap — fun activities, great learning, and yummy results for the little chefs!