How do you judge whether a child will be able to make a recipe? A child’s age can be a guide. Kitchen Ink publishes cookbooks for children of all ages, and each book indicates the recommended age range. Another factor affecting readiness is how much time the child has spent in the kitchen working with kitchen utensils and recipes. Depending on how long they have been cooking, two 4-year-olds might have completely different kitchen skills, with the more experienced child able to tackle more challenging recipes. Besides experience, children’s coordination, reading skills, strength, and skill at following instructions will also affect their ability in the kitchen. Kitchen Ink’s recipes vary from simple ones for beginners to more difficult ones for children whose kitchen skills are improving.

The following expectations and tasks can be used as a guide for readiness:

Ages 2–3 — Put on an apron, as there will be smiles and spill! Children of this age have short attention spans and will want to grab everything you put in front of them. Take the little ones outside to the garden to help pick vegetables for the evening meal. Pull a stool up to the sink and have them wash the veggies. When following a recipe, pre-measure ingredients and have the child add them to the bowl. Kneading dough is fun—just always make sure hands are washed before touching the dough.

Ages 4–6 — Hand and eye coordination improves, and attention span increases. Kids should review recipes with an adult, gather ingredients, help create a shopping list, and accompany the adult to the market. For meal prep, an adult can introduce knife safety skills. Perhaps the child can use a kid-safe knife to practice cutting and chopping, or a vegetable peeler to peel carrots and potatoes. The child can help clean up spills and messes and help set the table while the meal is cooking. Learning to clean up the kitchen and clear the table is just as important as preparing the meal!

Ages 7–9 — Discuss what you want to prepare together and create a meal plan. Reading and following simple recipes using small appliances (with adult supervision, of course) should be expected. Assist with learning fractions by using measuring cups and spoons and stressing the importance of following proper measurements. Demonstrate a cooking skill. Then, step back and let them take over.

Ages 10–14 — Children have much more independence and need little adult supervision. Kids should be able to follow a recipe from start to finish, use a food processor to prepare a recipe, and enjoy working on food presentation skills, such as decorating cakes. Adults should be on hand to keep a watchful eye when stoves are used and to assist with instruction for more advanced cooking techniques, such as sautéing, searing, browning, baking, and broiling. At this age kids take pride in completing a recipe. When a recipe doesn’t turn out right, the adult can help to identify what went wrong, so the kid can correct and redo the recipe.