This blog is usually firmly rooted in the ‘toe-curlingly embarrassing parenting mishaps’ category, but I’m shaking things up this week with a post on something that actually went rather well!

On Monday, I took Miss O to an under 5’s cooking class. Technically, I was 7 days late, as I’d set off the previous week with the best of intentions but my Sat Nav dicked about for England, so we ended up turning back 45 minutes later and consoling ourselves with cake at home instead (OK, so not totally mishap-free…)

Still, we finally made it! I have to admit, I did wonder how much an almost 2-year-old would get out of a cooking class, but I really wanted to try something new (because if I have to sit in a circle pretending to know the words to Dingle Dangle Scarecrow one more time, it might finish me off)

The set-up was fab – the lovely Maria runs her Crafty Cooks sessions from her own home (I had some hard-core kitchen envy going on) with a child-friendly work station. As there are only five children per class, it felt very relaxed and informal, and it was easy to chat with / apologise profusely to the other parents (Miss O was a tad heavy-handed with the flour…)

We got off to a bit of a slow start (mainly because she didn’t trust me to look after the empty tupperware box she’d been clinging onto since 7am):

But before long, she got completely into it, and was enthusiastically mixing and pouring with the best of them! This week we made savoury muffins – Maria really encouraged the children to do as much of the prep themselves as possible, including cracking the eggs (*gulp*). Whilst this had all the makings of absolute carnage, they managed really well; I was quite wowed by how much Miss O was able to do independently when given the opportunity!

Whilst the food cooked, Maria introduced a related activity to keep everyone engaged (wise move – my easily-distracted offspring was starting to eye up the Paw Patrol balloon floating enticingly in the next room). This week we tried different kinds of peppers, and had a ‘who can crunch their peppers the loudest’ competition (I’m pretty sure we came last, as Miss O misinterpreted this as a ‘who can inhale their pepper slices the quickest and whine dramatically for more’ contest)…

There was so much to like about this class. Not only did Miss O really enjoy herself, but she ate a huge amount (we had to ask for second helpings of ham, cheese AND peppers to ensure some actually made it into the muffins) and even wolfed down one of the finished articles. Regular readers of this blog will be well aware of my ongoing battle to coax her into trying anything that hasn’t been produced by Captain Birdseye, so this was an unexpected bonus.

The best part – no cleaning up for me!

We’ll definitely be going back next Monday – word on the street is that it’s custard creams week, so funnily enough J’s quite keen to come along this time…