I’ll be honest about how this started.
It was a Saturday afternoon. Benny was horizontal on the sofa (honestly one of our favourite positions now), in that specific state of consciousness where he’s technically alive but not available for parenting. Like Bandit from Bluey when he’s hiding behind a newspaper hoping nobody notices him.
So I decided we were baking.
I’d been meaning to use these Kuromi and Pochacco cookie moulds I bought months ago and they’d been sitting in the drawer doing nothing. I accidentally stumbled upon them when I was making Tiramisu the other day.
I stepped in the living room and made an announcement. “We are baking.”
The kids all scrambled.
What happened in the next thirty seconds
Elliot immediately tried to take charge of everything.
Julian ran to the kitchen like I’d announced a competition.
Ariel walked in, looked at the moulds, picked up the Kuromi one, and that was it — she had her entire agenda sorted. Everything else was secondary. She was making that one.
Benny shifted subtly on his sofa. There was no glance over from him. He is definitely in “Do not disturb mode” today. I muttered under my breath, “it’s fine, I can do this.”
He did not get up. I respect that, honestly. Both of us needed our private time, and after all he already spent the whole morning with the kids.
🧁 Why the moulds made all the difference
Here’s the thing about baking with young kids — the mixing and pouring is fun, but it’s not that exciting compared to their current favourite Pokemon show. Nevertheless, they are still honestly quite enthusiastic about doing it.
However, the moulds are the game changers. They overtly shifted the balance and made the baking experience totally riveting for them.
Suddenly it wasn’t “helping Mummy bake cookies.” It was “I am making a Kuromi cookie and it will be mine.” That shift in ownership is the whole game. Kids engage completely differently when they feel like it’s their project, not yours.
If you’re planning to bake with your kids, spend the two minutes finding a mould that matches something they’re currently obsessed with. Dinosaurs, Hello Kitty, whatever the kids are into currently.
That’s the unlock.
What they actually did
Elliot tried to do everything, including things I was doing, which is very Elliot.
Ariel mixed the batter like she was being timed. In terms of baking, she is definitely the most helpful one to have in the house. I could still remember her being ultra focused and patient when we had our first maiden experience of making mooncakes.
Julian was completely unbothered by the batter. He was there for the moulds. He pressed every single one with the focus of someone doing very important work.
No structure. No formal instructions. Just three kids fully occupied in my kitchen, which on a Saturday afternoon is genuinely all I needed.
What I’ve learned about baking with kids the hard way
If you walk in expecting a clean kitchen, you’re going to have a bad time.
If you expect perfect cookies, same problem.
If you expect smooth teamwork between a Primary 2 boy and two kindergarteners — I don’t know what to tell you.
This is what actually happened. Flour gets scattered everywhere. Someone puts in too much of something. Everyone has a strong opinion about who gets which mould. Ariel will take the Kuromi one regardless of what anyone else wants, and honestly she’s right to.
Expect mess. Expect chaos. Expect cookies that look slightly unhinged.
And somehow, enjoy it anyway.
The moment that got me
When everything was in the oven, all three of them just stood there.
Watching the oven window. Waiting.
Completely still. Completely quiet. Even if it was a brief moment.
I almost said something but decided not to. I just stood there too.
It hit me then — this is exactly the kind of quiet attention we’re always chasing. The focused, present, not-asking-for-screens kind. And they found it completely on their own, because something they made was in that oven.
Benny eventually came to the kitchen when he smelled them baking. Suddenly very available for parenting.
We still have some of the cookies left, by the way. Ariel’s Kuromi ones are very obviously the best ones. (Update: because this post sat in the draft for very long, the cookies was gone in a few days. Apparently, one small container gone missing, and upon detailed investigation, we realised it ended in Benny’s stomach, during one of his long school days.
You don’t need a full baking session
You don’t even need a good recipe.
You need one tray, one dough, and one mould that makes your kid’s eyes light up when they see it.
The rest sorts itself out.
And if your husband is on the sofa in a Bandit-from-Bluey situation — leave him there. You’ve got this.
More ideas for the afternoons when you need something real: