The recipe this week in my Twice as Tasty column on the Flathead Beacon website was intended for another Beacon publication: the Flathead Valley Family magazine. The latest edition of the magazine—in all its printed-page, glossy glory—hit the valley’s streets about a week ago. It includes an article that I filled with kid-friendly recipes, with the help of some of my favorite kid chefs.

My “Cooking with Kids!” feature offers breakfast, dinner, pickle, and cookie recipes all easily made by kids (with adult help, depending on the head chef’s age and experience). Be sure to pick up a printed copy of Flathead Valley Family or, if you’re not local, check out the full article online.

The Russell, Steck, and Van Ness families had so many great ideas that I knew we wouldn’t fit all of the recipes in the printed space. I tested and perfected this lemon loaf cake recipe anyway, and the Beacon’s media director, Hunter D’Antuono, took mouth-watering pictures of it during our photo shoot. My niece, who was making cheese with me at the age of 4, is an experienced-enough baker in her middle school years to make this cake on her own.

Learn more about cooking with kids and get the complete recipe for Loaf-Pan Lemon Cake in my column.

Make it, share it.
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Twice as Tasty

With so many delicious kid-approved ideas, who wouldn’t be excited about cooking with kids? In my experience, kids who are encouraged to play in the kitchen often eat a wide variety of healthy, homemade foods—even if their favorite activity is baking cake or cookies. Cooking involves the reading and math skills they’re just learning, and it provides lessons on following directions, hygiene, and safety. Kid chefs grow up to be better, more thoughtful eaters too, with more awareness of their food sources and choices. Plus as an adult, it’s just so much fun to have an eager kid chef at your elbow, measuring and mixing.

Here are just a few other recipes on the blog that I made as a kid and make with young chefs today.

• Dutch Baby
• Three-Egg Omelet
• Homemade Fruit Leather: Most Requested
• Lemon Cheese
• Sourdough Pizza Dough
• Veggie Shish Kebabs with Garlicy Marinade
• Golden Baked Custard
• Snickerdoodles

You can find more kid-friendly recipes in the recipe index. Read more of my work off the blog here.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.