Kitchen Helper

Since I wrote about cooking with Cherub she has become even more enthusiastic about baking and helping me in the kitchen. I don't need to ask if she wants to cook ... she's there, dragging her little chair behind her. Unfortunately the chair doesn't get her high enough to reach properly and I have to carry in a dining chair for her - I really need to find something more convenient. If I tell her she can't help with what I'm doing, she will not be put off ... "I watch!"

She is now getting quite a list of accomplishments in the kitchen:

• Spooning dry ingredients into a bowl. To start with she could only keep very small quantities on the spoon - most would fall off on the way out of the flour or sugar bag - but now she can spoon as much as we need.
  
• Beating eggs. I have a little whisk meant for hot chocolate that she uses. I break the eggs into a cup or bowl, she finds the whisk and beats them (sometimes, though not always, to the point where I don't need to finish off the task),
• Pouring, both liquid and dry ingredients.
• Setting out paper cake cases in trays - no need for instructions. Give her the trays and the cases and she's away.
• Getting out and putting away ingredients.
  
• Washing fruit and vegetables.
• Chopping. Eek. She started with mushrooms, using the knife from her cutlery set. She has moved on, of her own volition, to apples. Smushing might be a better description than chopping, but she is working on it.