Cooking experience: Making waffles and pancakes

Thursday 25th September 2018

The kitchen is a wonderful science lab for children. By helping to prepare meals, children learn to observe, measure, analyse, and make predictions. Cooking brings abstract concepts such as the role of temperature and properties of matter vividly to life as ingredients transform when butter melts, and batters rise and bubble. It also builds children’s comprehension and reasoning skills.

Through our observations, our children as a whole enjoyed the process of cooking through their dramatic play. They were seen cooking in the sandpit, cooking in the home corner, and cooking at the play-dough table. We planned to make waffles and pancakes with the children not only because they love cooking, but also to develop their gross motor skills and language.

To make this, the ingredients we used today included: 

+ One cup of all-purpose flour

+ One tablespoon of sugar and one teaspoon of baking powder

+ Half a teaspoon of baking soda, and a touch of Egg replacer mix

+ Quarter of a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of canola oil

+ One cup of plain Greek yogurt, some fruit mix and vanilla ice-cream

+ Three tablespoons of milk and some butter for the pan

Our children were involved in measuring and pouring into a large bowl the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and stirred it with a large spoon until blended. From there our children measured and added the oil, yogurt, and milk to the medium bowl and whisked this until all the ingredients were well incorporated.

We poured the liquid ingredients into the large mixing bowl that contained the dry ingredients, and whisked until all ingredients were nicely blended. The children had a go at pouring the batter onto the sandwich and waffle maker once we switched it on. We made our own unique pancakes by sprinkling add-ons. The children learnt how to flip the pancakes and to remove them from the pan with their spatula. The most interesting aspect of this experience for children was watching the batter change form in the pan from liquid to a solid. They all watched the pancakes bubbling and flipping over. Whilst participating in this cooking activity the children learnt mathematics through measuring the ingredients, patience through waiting for the waffles/ pancakes to cook, and extended their language through discussions about the ingredients and the recipe.

We asked, “How do you know when it is ready?” “It’s brown.” Said Vivienne. “What ingredients do we need to make this?” “Flour and sugar.” Said Wolfe.

To this day, pancakes and waffles remain one of our most requested recipes. The batter is easy for our children to make, and they could customise their creations with chocolate chips, banana slices, blueberries, sliced strawberries, chopped apple, and anything else they wanted. We added toppings that included jam, whipped cream, syrup, honey, and a fruit sauce.

We assessed what we made with a taste test to see if we had used the correct ratio of ingredients. It was great to work along side the children to work out the portions of ingredients needed and to see what went right and what went wrong. When our first batch didn’t go according to plan we asked, “Was there too much flour used?” “Add a bit more water, put more milk in.” Sophie recommended. “If we add a bit more water, will it hold together?” Sophie said, “I think it not sweet enough. A bit more honey please.”

Just like our pizzas, our activity involves just enough danger and we spoke about safe practices and learning how to handle a hot pan safely. As the educators and children worked together cooking, we could gauge just how much involvement was appropriate for their coordination level.  We spoke about how it’s okay to give things a go and that we need lots of chances to mess it up so that we can learn what to do differently next time.

What do think of our creations? Let us know your thoughts.

If you have a great crepe recipe, please share.