My 11-year old is going CRAZY for an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. Even though they updated it so you don't need a lightbulb, I think it's silly to spend $60 on a TOY oven when she can easily bake in our real oven or toaster oven. She already does! I think it's one more gadget we don't need in our very small kitchen. I've also heard that the mixes are expensive for what you're really getting. I do know they have sites where you can get recipes so you don't have to buy their mixes.
I think the lure of the Easy Bake is the fact that she can make small cakes and stuff. Does anyone know if you can translate the recipes to a toaster oven? We have a toaster oven that has a temperature gauge on it. I would imagine that the Easy Bake and the toaster oven could be used in a similar way? If I could find a way for her to use our toaster oven just like an Easy Bake, then I think she'd be happy.
Ideas?
Good ideas! I will look for small pans and fun cooking supplies of "her own" and a cookbook. I think that will be a more practical gift for an 11-year old, plus she'll get a lot of use and fun out of it! We can experiment in the toaster oven.
I went back and read the other post about the Easy Bake Oven. It's $60! We do not have $60 to throw away on something she will use 2 times and that makes gross food :( Maybe one of her friends has one? I know one of my friends had one and we used it one time and the food tasted gross. Evidently the mixes haven't changed!
Great idea on the cookie mix and sprinkles! This could be a fun gift to put together! Thanks mamas!
That thing is so not worth the money!!! Target sells really cute kids cooking tools that you could get her for the same if not cheap $$ and she can learn to bake in the kitchen with normal cooking pans and mixes. You might even be able to find mini cake pans too if you look online.
S.
Easy Bake ovens are NOT all they are cracked up to be.
If your daughter is well used to using the real kitchen, at 11, she seems a bit old for an Easy Bake. To me, that would be like buying her a tricycle for Christmas when she's clearly outgrown one.
I would find her a cute apron and some of her own baking utensils and a cookbook. I have some of the most darling heartshaped cake pans, tart tins, mini muffin pans, etc. Since she clearly has a love and desire to bake, I would get her some of her own "big girl" things like cookie cutters, a cake decorating kit that includes different frosting tips so she can learn to make rosettes and things like that. Get her a box of ginger cookie mix. Make sure you have everything for her to make and decorate some sugar cookies like an array of different sprinkles and things so she can set to work using them to bake for you on Christmas over the rest of the holidays.
She may be disappointed if she doesn't get an Easy Bake, but she'll be disappointed if she does get one. It's not so much an oven as it is a toy and I think she would grow bored with it very, very quickly.
Just my opinion.
Best wishes.
She is 11 so she can use a toaster oven.. My oldest had a easy bake oven when she was 7 years old. The age group is 8 to 10 rite? I do not know they keep upgrading it so.... Anyways it was not so fun.. I would let your 11 year old go crazy with your toaster oven and real foods. The easy bake foods did not taste good at all!
Ugg that stupid easy bake oven. The commercials make it looks so cool - LOL. When I get stuck like that I tell my kids that I read the reviews on Amazon and everyone was saying that It does not work like the commercial and that the food is sooo tiny. Then show her one of the new cake pop makers or similar things like that. She would love that so much more.
My granddaughter received an Easy Bake Oven when she was 9 or 10. She used it a couple of times; that's all. It's not as much fun as it seems. The cakes/cookies made with their mixes do not have much taste. The cakes were rather flat and both cakes and cookies were pale in color. Everything, including the oven, is small and awkward to use. A toaster oven would be much more fun. In a toaster oven the products will look and taste much better.
You can use regular recipes and smaller pans. You just put in the amount that the pan is made for. So you could cut recipes in half or so or she can bake what she wants and then bake the rest in a larger pan in the regular oven.
I bake in my toaster oven.
I do all kinds of things with my toaster oven.
And yes, they make small type mini pans etc. Just search for it.
A toaster oven is an oven.
An Easy bake oven is not an oven. It is a toy.
I have a 10 year old daughter, and she rather just cook or bake in the kitchen herself. Which she can. I have taught her to use everything in the kitchen. The oven/microwave/stove top/can opener, and... the toaster oven. And sure, I supervise her.
I hear ya! My daughter, who is 7, is also dying for one this Christmas. We cook in the kitchen with the real oven - I even bought her red utensils of her own to really cook with.
BUT she is dying for this stupid thing. You can check my history, I asked a similar question.
I decided to give the gift idea to my sister. She found one for $40 at Walmart and bought her a couple mixes and an apron. She will get the wow factor (which she loves) when my daughter opens it up, then we will cook a couple things in it and my daughter will realize it's not so great and we will continue to have fun together cooking in the real oven.
I'm getting a kids cookbook for my daughter and we will spend time doing that.
So that's what I recommend. Give the gift idea to a grandma or something and let them waste their money, but get the excited moment when she opens it.
If you live anywhere near a bake shop... You can pick up individual sized cake pans (springform, ring, bundt, etc.), although people usually just bake a sheet and use a glass or ring to cut out circles.
Then you just set the toaster oven, or real oven to them same temp the recipe requires, and toothpick test early & often.
Could you just purchase tiny pans for her and let her use your regular oven? I was baking cakes and cookies on my own by this age in our oven.
Or see if on Craigslist or go on facebook with your friends and see if you can find an easy bake oven used...I promise.. 2 or 3 times and she will be done with it..
I think the recipes are general no-egg /no butter recipes. You generally just need to add water.
My daughter was just giving an Easy Bake Cookie thing, that was NOT all that. The mix took FOREVER!! We ended up not doing it right. Then you put everything on a special tray and cover and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and out pops a cookie. She enjoyed the cookie, but it didn't look done to me, and got hard as a rock within minutes.
I am sure about the transposing but there are toaster oven recipes out there. Plus the quality is HORRID.
I'm with you. Easy Bake Ovens are a pain, expensive, and the mixes are expensive. All in all, it's an expensive mess.
I would go to ALDI and get some of their muffin/quickbread mixes and start teaching her to use the REAL oven. She could make mini muffins, cakes, etc.
Best of luck!
♥
C. Lee
