Casdon Joseph Joseph Food Preparation Set Review
DISCLOSURE – THIS ITEM WAS GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE THE REVIEWER’S OWN.
Reviewed by Deborah Banasko
My three children love to bake, but my youngest does struggle with the large mixing bowls at home so the Casdon Joseph Joseph Food Preparation Set was a perfect review for us.
The packaging was compact, colourful, and made my 5 year-old gasp as it depicts a child making a fun-filled mess with flour and baking, so he knew exactly what the set was going to be used for.
The 9-piece set is just the right size for young children, and each piece in the set is a different vibrant colour. The pieces all fit inside one-another keeping it compact for storage, easy to take out and use, with the bonus of not having to search for lost pieces. The instruction leaflet in the pack reminds you how to fit it all back together, although it is straight forward.
It comprises of mixing bowl, small mixing bowl, sieve, colander and 5 interlocking measuring cups of different volumes. The small mixing bowl has a spout/lip, so we used this bowl for beating eggs in before pouring them into the main mixing bowl.
I love that this set takes away the need for weighing out ingredients. Whilst I have always tried to let my children help with the weighing, they do rely on me to help. As long as you are happy to accept a little mess, children can do the measuring themselves using a recipe based on cup measurements (I found fairy cake recipes easily by searching the internet). My son was much more independent as I told him which coloured cup he needed for each ingredient, but also linked this to the measurement volume to encourage early baking numeracy. The cups have the measurements written onto their base in millilitres as well as cup-volume, although the fractions used for “cup-volume” may be a little advanced for the target age group to comprehend.
Overall, the set is the perfect size for little hands as there is no leaning up over a too-large mixing bowl and struggling to peer inside at the mixture. It is a great introduction to baking independently.
The target age is 3 plus; to be honest I see no issue with children using the bowl a little younger than this even if it’s just to make a floury mess as it’s always good to introduce cooking early. Due to the size of the bowl and the limited volume that it can hold I would think a child would grow out of it at around the age of 7 as they would want to progress to larger quantities perhaps by then, but the cups could still be used.
I would have loved a whisk or small wooden spoon to have been included in this set, to keep it all co-ordinated and “mini”. Perhaps it could be clipped over the top of the set somehow. The sieve was very sweet and easy to hold, but it would have been better if perhaps it had a long handle or was able to rest onto the mixing bowl. This is just a minor point really and didn’t impact on how much fun my son had using the set. Having two small handles allowed us to tap the opposite handle onto edges of the bowl as we sieved.
The bowl isn’t huge, so the type of baking possible with this set is a little limited. This works fine for very young children, but when making a larger cake we had to use my usual bowl alongside the Casdon sieve and measuring cups.
When reviewing this critically I had to remind myself that this set retails at just £10! This is amazing value for the baking and role play opportunities, as we used it with my sons’ toy kitchen and in the bath too. This is intended to be an introduction to baking for young children, and it achieves exactly that.
This set is a fabulous birthday present idea, and a lovely way to spend time together in the kitchen. My little one feels like such a big boy! I would happily buy this set for children of family and friends as it is a useful, well-priced gift.
I would award this food preparation set 4.5 stars out of 5 as it really is a baking must-have for younger children.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
RRP: £10
You can purchase this product from Casdon here: https://www.casdon.com/product/joseph-joseph-nest/