Toddler Cooking Project:

We discovered that baking fruit is a wonderful cooking project for toddlers and parents.

What to do:

1. Setup a child-sized table for food preparation. You and your child wash hands (make this a ritual for all food preparation and your child will do it automatically later). Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Have four apples ready.
3. Ask your toddler to take the apples from the bag (or refrigerator or wherever you store them) and wash them.
4. Your child will wash the apples at a child-sized sink.
5. Have a baking dish ready (not a non-stick).
6. Your child can apply butter or olive oil (butter can be spread by hand and oil can be spread with a wooden or plastic spatula).
7. Your child can place the apples in the pan.
8. You put the pan in the oven.

We usually cook the apples until the juices burst the skins because they taste so good that way. This requires about 45 minutes.

The beauty of this project is that the apples do not require any preparation (later, your child can practice cutting, coring, and peeling them).

You take the pan out of the oven. When it is cooled enough, your child can use a large metal spoon and one hand to take each apple out of the pan and place it on a plate for serving. The apples are great eaten plain, or your child can experiment with topping them with Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of cinnamon.