Taking back The Kitchen And Baking Brownies

When I was a child the kitchen really was the heart of are home, my mum came from a family of bakers and she was always baking pies and cakes for people as well as delicious homemade meals for us. I have such fond childhood memories of baking cakes, jam tarts and eating marzipan as she iced Christmas cakes. I have not inherited my mums love of cooking and baking though, I never bake with my own children as I hate the mess. 

Recently I was contacted to see if I would like to take part in a Take Back The Kitchen campaign which is part of the bigger #LittleKitchen campaign by Wren Kitchens. The campaign came about when they surveyed 2,000 parents with children aged 0-16 and found out that 3 in 4 parents admitted that they could be eating better as a family, something I am sure many families can relate to my own included. The survey also showed that 1 in 10 parents admit to cooking from scratch and sitting down to eat only once or twice a month! 

After seeing these findings Wren Kitchens decided to create Little Kitchen Hub which has great recipes, tips and tricks for getting little ones to eat more healthy and hopefully make meal times more fun. With this in mind they decided to contact me and ask if I would like to take part in a fun challenge of getting my little ones in the kitchen to do some cooking. We do cook most meals from scratch and eat as a family often when the other half is off work but I knew that Sophia would love to get in the kitchen more. She adores baking and helping with tasks such as the dishes but rarely gets the chance to do them. 

We were sent a box of baking equipment and crafty items as well as a supermarket voucher and Little Kitchen Big Ideas recipe book to help encourage us to have fun in the kitchen. Sophia had great fun with the crafty items, decorating an apron and doing some colouring and then we got are bake on. I decided to bake the chocolate brownies out of the recipe book as I thought they looked nice and simple for my three year old to make and I knew she would enjoy eating them too. 

Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Ingredients

• 200g dark chocolate
• 175g unsalted butter
• 325g caster sugar
• 130g plain flour
• 3 eggs
• 100g milk chocolate (cut into chunks)
• 100g white chocolate (cut into chunks)

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees / gas mark 3
•  Line a baking tray with baking paper
• Melt the dark chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water until melted
• Remove chocolate from the heat and add the sugar, stir well
• Stir in the flour & mix well
• Add the eggs to the mixture one by one until thick & smooth
• Add the milk & white chocolate chunks and stir well
• Pour mixture into the lined baking tray, bake in oven for around 40 minutes. The brownies should be flaky on the top but soft in the middle
• Leave brownies to cool before cutting into chunks

Then you can tuck in and enjoy. Everyone in are family enjoyed these brownies as they were full of flavour and utterly delicious. 

Sophia absolutely loved baking and having fun in the kitchen and I have now decided that I will be baking more with her from now on as she adored it and I want her to have the memories that I have. When we move (hopefully this summer) I am going to be making sure that the kitchen becomes the heart of are home and that meal times are fun and family time. 

Do your little ones enjoy being in the kitchen ? 

Disclosure I was sent a goodie bag & vouchers for the purpose of this post, however all opinions are my own.