Both of my children enjoy cooking and baking with me. Cooking and baking is a great way to develop an essential life skill as well as spend quality family time together. It can be stressful at times but I find that preparation is key and also having the right tools for job too. Some of the regular tools in the kitchen are too cumbersome and heavy for them to handle.
Toy company Casdon has teamed up with baby food expert and cookery book writer Annabel Karmel to create a range of cooking tools that work as normal kitchen tools. These high quality Casdon implements are all approved by Annabel who has written special recipes that are easy for young children to make. The range includes baking sets with cake moulds, baking accessories, mixing bowls and decoration tools which have been available to buy from mid-July.
We have received My Perfect Pastry Set, Mini Pizza Set and Mini Cupcake Set With Utensils to try out. So far during this summer holiday, we have been putting these new sets to good use by baking cakes and making pizza!
First, we used the pastry set and mini cupcake set to make Victoria sponge cake and funny faced cupcakes. The pastry set comes with plastic bowl, whisker, round sandwich tray, plastic jug, measuring spoons, pastry cutters, roller and spatula. We have used a Victoria sponge cake recipe to make our cake and used the leftover to make the mini cupcakes. The lightweight plastic bowl comes with a non-slip bottom which is useful when using it on the table. The utensils are all made with good quality materials. The colours are bright and attractive. There is a good quality finish to the whole set, with smooth surfaces and each utensil is nicely weighted for children. The minor quibble is that the measuring spoons seem slightly too plasticky and the measurements on the spoons are hard to see.
Ms C was very confident in using all the utensils! Next we used the mini cupcake tray to bake. I love the baking tray as it comes with comfortable silicon handles on the sides. Besides using the tray to bake cupcakes, I have also used it to bake carrot cupcake ice cream cones. It is the perfect size to hold it! I also love the mini silicon cupcake cases. They slide off the cake with ease and are also easy to wash. The utensils are at the right length for my children to mix with.
As for the mini pizza set, it comes with a cutter, roller and a 23cm pizza tray. Again another great quality set. The tray is quite lightweight yet robust. It does the job and voilà! We have our pizza which we cut using the cutter!
Overall these sets are great quality with attractive colours that every budding chef would love! I would recommend them!
Disclosure: We received the samples for the purposes of writing this review however all thoughts and opinions remain our own.
