Brownie Cookie Picture Recipe

We continue our countdown to Christmas for day 14 of Advent. I’m sharing a Christmas science idea with you at the beginning of each day until Christmas. Day 14’s activity is a Brownie Cookie Picture Recipe.

Following a recipe is a lot like following a procedure in a science lab. You follow each step exactly as it is written {even if you’re the one that created the steps in the first place} to hopefully ensure your results are consistent each time you do the procedure. Aiden just turned 4, and he can’t read yet. How can he follow the directions in a recipe? I made a picture recipe for him. I most recently saw the idea of a visual recipe from TinkerLab on Instagram. Rachelle created a visual recipe map for her daughter to make pancakes. Such a great idea.

Aiden loves to help roll out dough – pizza dough, cookie dough, whatever. He likes to help and he’s getting pretty good at it. I wanted an easy Christmas recipe that he could follow and end up rolling out a dough. Enter the brownie roll-out cookies I made for Aiden’s birthday last year. They are pretty much a chocolate sugar cookie, but the dough is a little more forgiving. {The recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen.}

I created a picture recipe of the brownie cookie recipe by taking pictures of our tools and ingredients. I used different colored measuring cups to help Aiden see what to use. We did run into a problem with the white measuring cups – I used a 1 cup measuring cup and a 2/3 cup measuring cup that were both white. Aiden had a hard time telling the difference between the two in my pictures. I thought I obviously made one bigger than the other, but when I asked him which was bigger he said the 2/3 cup…

I placed the measuring cup or spoon on top of the ingredient that needed to be measured. The 1 cup measuring cup was placed on top of the flour container, the 1/2 tsp measuring spoon was placed on top of the baking powder, etc.

I tried to let Aiden follow the recipe without much interference, but I did make sure he followed it correctly. I showed him how to level the flour and sugar. I had him mix the ingredients in one at a time. Then, he rolled out the dough and used the cookie cutters.

Here are a few of our finished cookies. They are yummy.

More Recipe Ideas for Kids

Have you noticed that boxed cake mixes have picture recipes on them? Use the directions on the box as a springboard for creating a picture recipe for your child to follow.
Let your child create her own recipe. Write down the steps as she does. TinkerLab shares some great tips for inventing a recipe with kids.

I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 15’s Christmas science activity.

More Christmas Activities for Kids

Catch all of our Christmas Science Advent Calendar ideas.
Explore pine needles and Christmas trees and take our Christmas science challenge.
Turn your child’s art into a great Christmas project with these 15 Christmas ideas with children’s art.
Check out all of our Christmas ideas.

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