Best Play Food Set for Budding Bakers

This Cookie Set Brings Out the Best in Kids

• What: Melissa and Doug Slice and Bake Wooden Cookie Play Set
• When: Ages two and up
• Why: Hours of play, durable, affordable
• Where: Amazon

We first spotted this Melissa and Doug Slice and Bake Cookie Set during a friend’s birthday party and my son the chef decided he couldn’t live without it. I snapped a photo to remind me and added it to his wishlist. Lo and behold, it magically arrived by the holidays, almost as if a jolly old man in a fuzzy red suit did exist.

We’ve owned it a solid four years now and it gets used nearly every day. The set includes twelve wooden cookies with Velcro in the middle on each side, and twelve wooden frosting pieces. The frosting pieces have six white shades and six brown, with varying decorations – sprinkles, dots, or lines – on each one. The set also includes a wooden baking sheet complete with twelve Velcro spots to make sure the dozen cookies don’t slid off. Since the cookies will stick to each other to create a roll of dough, you get a knife for slicing them. It even comes with a fabric red and white checked baking mitt as well as a wooden silver spatula for removing the cookies and a round canister to hold all twenty four cookie pieces.

What’s more impressive than the number of included pieces is the fact that I can still locate almost all of them after so many years. I might have trouble finding one or both of the removable plastic ends of the cookie container, but if I’m motivated and have enough time, I can definitely locate most of the twelve cookies and their frosting. (Somehow our cookie sheet has gone into hiding in the last few days, but I’m confident it will turn up soon.)

My youngest child loves these things so much we have even traveled with them. He’s also been known to pocket them for safekeeping, and despite a trip through both the washer and dryer, that particular cookie only has a slight crack in it. It just proves the pieces hold up very well to “pretend” nibbles and tastes, as well as being dropped repeatedly and hauled around the house in so many different ways I couldn’t begin to list them. The Velcro still sticks, despite many, many attachments and removals to the other cookie parts and much more. And somehow, magically enough, the small circles of Velcro don’t seem to pick up much fuzz or other random things.

If you have a budding chef or even want some more variety in your play kitchen, I highly recommend this complete cookie set.