By Aysha Schurman

Baking can be a great way to spend fun time with the entire family. Everyone loves yummy treats, and making them together can be a perfect bonding experience.

Anyone of any age can help out with at least one part of the project, so your little two year old girl can have as much fun as your twelve year old son.

Baking can also teach important skills to any children in the family. Basic eye/hand coordination, measurements, math, patience, and the rewards of hard work can all be valuable lessons.

Be careful not to make this like school though, the learning should be secondary to enjoyment and family bonding.

To guarantee the baking project is actually fun for the entire family, elaborate recipes should be avoided. Nobody is going to enjoy the activity if they need to be boiling things to an exact temperature, or mixing complicated measurements.

Remember that anything too easy will bore the older children, and anything too complicated will confuse the younger ones.

Keep the projects easy, fun, and yummy. Bond with the entire family and have a blast. For actual project ideas, try:

* FAMILY COOKIES *

- A really fun baking project for the entire family is baking an entire family! Use gingerbread, sugar cookie dough, or whatever you want, as the base. Create the dough together or go buy some ready-made dough for a super quick activity.

- Just roll out the dough and have each family member cut out a gingerbread man shaped cookie. Each person should either decorate the cookie before or after baking, depending on technique used. Basically just bake the cookie, making two to four cookies per family member.
- Use icing in assorted colors, sprinkles, and candies to decorate the cookie so it looks like the person doing the decorating! Or let each person make a cookie that looks like each member of the family.

- Yellow icing for blond hair and blue “Skittles” for blue eyes! The cookies can be decorated as simply or elaborately as desired, depending on the creator’s skill and age.

- This is a great way to separate treats and figure out who’s had ten cookies and who’s only had three. Just make the rule, you only eat cookies that look like you, and the problem is solved. Kids love seeing the entire family in sweet form, and adore making tiny replicas of themselves to munch on.

* KITCHEN SINK CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES *

- Try some delicious chocolate chip cookies with everything in them! Decide what each person in the family loves in the cookies. Make them prepare and add whatever that ingredient is. So Mom adds chopped walnuts, Dad adds semi-sweet chocolate chips, younger sis adds butterscotch chips, and older sis adds milk chocolate chips.

- Whatever the combination, it’s hard to come up with something that doesn’t taste great. Take turns stirring the dough and have everyone help out with placing the cookies on the baking sheet. Bake, let cool, and gobble up.

* 4TH OF JULY CUPCAKE SURPRISE *

- Whip up some plain white/yellow cupcake mix. Use colorful cupcake papers, put them in the pan, and fill each cup a little less than half full. Take a large pinch of fresh berries, blueberry works best, and place them in the middle of the cupcake. Kids love to help out with this berry task, and do a great job.
- Once all the berries are placed, fill the cupcakes up the rest of the way and bake. Take the cupcakes out and let them cool off.

- Use a bright colored frosting, blue or red works best, and frost the cupcakes. Then take sprinkles, candies, and contrasting colored icing to decorate. Add a tiny American flag to each one or just gobble up right away.

* FRUIT PUDDING CUPS *
- Make or buy some sugar cookie dough and roll it out very thin. Take some cupcake papers and place them in a cupcake pan. Cut a shape out of the dough large enough to line the cupcake. Push the dough down if needed, and reshape it until it becomes a cup.

- Place pan in over and bake it for *2/3* the time recommended for the sugar cookies, so probably around 8 minutes. Take pan out of oven. Add some chopped fresh fruit to the very bottom of the cup, like a mix of Strawberries, Blueberries, Apples, and Pears. Or, for something really, really sweet, use fruit cocktail without the juice.
- Mix up some vanilla or chocolate pudding, and fill the cups about 2/3 full. Add another sprinkling of the fruit to fill cup almost to the top. Now place pan back into oven for rest of cooking time, probably about 4 minutes.

- Take out of oven and let cool. To avoid a real mess, use a fork/spoon and bowl when gobbling up.

* ENGLISH MUFFIN PIZZA *

- These easy and yummy treats can be used as a quick snack or a fun meal. Chop up some ingredients and put them into bowls, creating a do-it-yourself pizza buffet. Just take an English muffin and open it, so you have two halves, and place it on a plate.

- Use pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, or just plain ketchup with a spoon to cover the slices. Then pick and mix the toppings, with everyone only using what they like. Sprinkle on a nice layer of cheese, any kind will do. Pop into microwave, toaster oven, or oven to heat and melt the cheese.

* FAMILY NACHOS *

- Take a large, non-stick baking dish and a bag of corn chips. Let the whole family join in on smashing the corn chips and placing them in the pan, use about 3/4 of the bag. Warm up some refried beans for easier spreading, and let the kids smear it over the chips.

- Take a container of sour cream and smear a light layer over the beans, again, great part for kids to help with. Sprinkle a heavy layer of cheddar cheese over the sour cream. Spread anywhere from 1/2 to 1 pound of cooked and seasoned ground beef over the cheese.

- Sprinkle beef with cheddar cheese. Add any tomatoes, olives, chives, or onions if desired. Add the rest of the mashed up chips. Pour a little salsa over the chips if everyone likes it. Sprinkle with more cheddar cheese. Put in oven at 350 and bake for about ten minutes, or until the cheese is all gooey.