As a parent, you always want your child to exert their independence by learning to make their own food. Cooking is a life skill that kids need to acquire. Many start off by helping their parents in the kitchen and work their way up to creating their own meals.
There are many helpful cooking clubs, recipe guides, and gadgets out there to get them going. Raddish is a subscription cooking club for kids that teaches them to be chefs and create real meals with the help of recipe cards. We’re not talking about grilled cheese sandwiches or mac and cheese; these are recipes that adults would make as well.
I recently tested a kit with my two daughters, ages 9 and 11. Here’s our Raddish Kids review.
Raddish Kids Review — Dessert
Each pack comes with an apron, three recipe cards, a shopping list, instructions to set up your own little restaurant, and four table talk cards — similar to the image above. There’s also a small badge that can be attached to the apron once the kids are all done. Unlike kid-focused recipe kits like Baketivity, Raddish does not come with the ingredients. They send you a list, but most items were things we had at home already.
We were sent the My Italian Restaurant kit, so it also came with a ravioli mold. The recipe card clearly lists the ingredients and tools needed, and there are pictures to go along with the list so there’s no confusion. The cards include illustrated pictures and directions of each step that needs to be taken to make the recipe. Kids will also learn a featured culinary skill on each card.
Our recipe cards were for an antipasto, three cheese ravioli, and tiramisu. We decided to make the tiramisu first because it needed to chill in the fridge for at least two hours.
This card was very easy to follow and did not require much prep time. It took us about 20 minutes to get everything together. Raddish kits are advertised for kids 4-over 14 — and I think kids of all ages could complete these steps by themselves with minimal supervision except for the part that requires a hand mixer. Younger kids would certainly need help doing this.
There aren’t many ingredients needed which is also a plus. There are only seven required, and the tools you need are pretty standard to any kitchen. My kids enjoyed making this one because it was something that they did on their own. I was just there for support, but they were able to measure and mix all of the ingredients needed.
The Main Course
The next step was the three-cheese ravioli. This one was certainly more detailed and time-consuming. You know before you begin because it tells you that the active kitchen time is 50-60 minutes. So, this is something you would want to save for the weekend or for a night when you have time to devote to it.
First, you made the dough. This is rather easy and something that kids did by themselves for the most part. This step also introduced the culinary skill of kneading. Once the dough is made, it sits for 30 minutes so be sure to take this into consideration.
From there we made the filling — another easy step for kids to complete. Once the dough was ready, we rolled out enough to cover the ravioli mold. This step got a little tiring as the process went on, required parental help (especially the younger ones), and while the recipe says it yields 24 raviolis, we were only able to make 18 with the dough and filling ingredients. Another small issue we had was popping out the raviolis. They didn’t always cut through the whole way, so we had to manipulate them a bit to make it work.
Cooking the raviolis was no problem at all and they cooked in under ten minutes, which was great because we were hungry after doing all of that work! While the raviolis cooked, the girls made the antipasto salad. This was an easy recipe that they handled on their own. (They left out some of the ingredients that they don’t eat, like the garbanzo beans and the salami.) This recipe let them also work on the featured culinary skill of dicing the ingredients.
The Moment of Truth
Once everything was cooked, it was time for the all-important taste test. The antipasto salad was tasty and made for a great appetizer. The raviolis were also yummy and cooked well. But, our favorite part of the meal was the dessert. The chocolate tiramisu was delicious, and was so good that we wanted seconds!
The Verdict
In the end, the Raddish cooking was fun and included some great recipes. Depending on the kit you’re making, the ingredient list could get long and a bit costly if you don’t already have some of the items in the house. For this particular box, rolling of the pasta dough did get tedious and time-consuming, but was worth it in the end.
Many of the recipes were easy to follow and were ones that some kids could complete on their own, depending on their age. This is great because it gives kids the confidence they need in the kitchen and gives them a sense of accomplishment to see what they’ve made — especially when it tastes great! The tiramisu dessert was so good that it’s one I’m going to save to make in the future. This was a nice bonus!
If you’re looking for a fun meal kit that teaches kids to make different dishes, then the Raddish cooking club is something to definitely put on your radar. Besides offering tasty meals, it also provides families time together in the kitchen as they work on these recipes.
Bonus Recipe
Here’s a bonus recipe for Parentology readers from Raddish. Check it out below or print it here.
