Whenever Ma and I go to Watford to look after the boys, I try and find a cooking project with Oli. This is because I like cooking and hope that he’ll enjoy it too but it’s also so he appreciates how much effort his parents go to to feed him!

When he was younger, I did try to get him involved when we cooked but he had a limited attention span so we only did easy things..

Nowadays though, Oli is interested in how things work and can be a bit more hands on, so it becomes an educational experience too. I try to make things that Oli can eat straight away and last time we made bread for our Sunday morning bacon sandwiches!

I used the basic easy white bread recipe and away we went. We talked about yeast and how it works, what yeast needs to produce air, different types of flour and so on. Although I think Oli’s favourite bit was punching down the dough, but I find that children retain knowledge in interesting ways and it comes out where you least expect it.

The bread rose a little bit quicker that I was expecting, and I didn’t get a picture of the finished product or the bacon sandwiches but on Sunday we all, even Joe, got to eat bread that Oli made!