Foodie Workshops
We run regular and ad-hoc foodie workshops for groups of children of all ages, in any venue of your choosing.
If no oven is available, we have a range of seasonal no-heat, creative recipes that kids love – and if you’d like us to come along more frequently, we can even help the children make their own evening meal, all parcelled-up in a foil tray and ready for their parents to just pop in the oven!
For settings and venues with kitchen facilities, we can come weekly, monthly, termly or on any ad-hoc basis to suit your needs – we’ll bake a range of sweet and savoury goodies, and we can even link some of our recipes to match themes in your curriculum if required. Whether it’s Chinese New Year (Spring Rolls), Plants and Growth (Flowerpot Cheesecakes), Mini Beasts (Bug Bites) or Modern Foreign Languages (Lazy Breakfast Croissants): you throw us the challenge and we’ll see what we can do!
For the participating club or setting there is nothing to buy, prepare up or pack away as our DBS-checked cookery tutors take care of running every aspect of the session, and we take care of all the cleaning-up too! It’s an easy-peasy way to incorporate some cookery and food education into your curriculum, plus it:
Encourages healthy eating
Supports development in the EYFS and Key Stages 1-2
Gives key-workers and staff the opportunity to undertake hands-off observations of children
Provides a fun and educational activity for the children to enjoy
Early Years
Children love exploring food. Childminders, nurseries and pre-schools work with our cookery school to help children from a young age to cook and engage with the different textures, colours and smells – not to mention new flavours!
This is a crucial age where children watch what their peers are doing, and don’t want to be left out. Active children learn to sit and engage with a quieter activity; children who don’t like the feel of certain textures will help ‘tickle’ the flour into the butter because their friends are; fussy eaters are gently encouraged by non-confrontational group activity to have a little try; and we practice new motor skills with every different piece of equipment we use (and we have a lot!).
Our core objective is to support and inspire children to develop a positive and lifelong relationship with good food. We firmly believe cookery is a life-skill that every child should be taught to learn and enjoy.
Primary Schools (key-stages 1 & 2)
Cooking is a crucial life-skill that, sadly, not all children are empowered or encouraged to learn at home. We believe primary schools and extra-curricular clubs have an important role to play in
exposing all children to this vital, fun and nutritious skill. We all know how cookery and the enjoyment of food-craft can be a great way to boost children’s independence and long-term health.
Getting to grips with fruit and veg is not just a brilliant way to encourage healthy eating, but also teaches children about their world. Understanding where food comes from, how it is produced and what different cultures do with it to make delicious meals can be really exciting, as well as educational. Some of our most popular recipes are not the same-old traditional ones you might expect! Our Veggie Samosas, Baked Moroccan Soup, Super Doodle Noodles, and Halloumi Kebabs are packed full of exotic flavours and kids love them!
Secondary schools and Youth groups (key-stages 3 & 4)
Older children are more likely to have a wider knowledge of ingredients, and a stronger sense of what they (think they) do and don’t like. They are able to handle more dangerous equipment such as sharp knives and hot ovens (with appropriate instruction and supervision). And yet their experience, knowledge and ability varies widely. Many children of this age get little opportunity to practice their developing skills, and may have limited willingness to try new tastes and textures. Open discussions about healthy eating, food hygiene, and where our food comes from can turn into lively and interesting discussions during food prep and clearing-up activities.
Our structured sessions enable students of a wide range of ability to work together, practicing and consolidating these vital life skills and comparing notes about their own experiences and preferences. We can theme and tailor our recipes to align with key aspects of the curriculum, or select from our existing wide-range of savoury and sweet recipes to challenge and develop these young chefs.
One of our regular sessions at this age-group involves 12 foster children coming together on a Sunday morning once a month in Hampshire to cook a meal for themselves and their adult carers, before sitting together as a group of 24 to enjoy the lunch they have prepared. With Lottery funding secured to initially enable these sessions, we are now well into our second year of delivering these classes and it’s a particularly rewarding aspect of our offering, regularly receiving positive feedback from both the children and adults who attend.
Why Us?
Your staff can already cook, so why should you choose Cookery Doodle Doo to deliver cookery sessions on your premises? The clubs and settings that use us, choose us because we can:
We shop, prep, deliver the session in a fun and engaging manner, then deal with all the mess.
We have a quantity and variety of equipment specially designed for children to grate safely, squeeze citrus fruits easily, peel and chop apples without any knives, measure ingredients without temperamental scales, and more…
You might like to arrange a regular weekly session, a one-off class or seasonal/ termly visits: no problem. You might or might not have an oven, fridge, kettle, toaster or microwave: no problem.
We are experienced at adapting recipes for special diets – vegetarian/vegan, religious needs and dietary allergies/intolerances can all be catered-for.
Whether you like exotic or homely, our recipes are always exciting, creative, fresh and tasty.
We know how important that is in building relationships.
So give us a call and discover the nutritious and creative fun we can bring to your setting or club.
