Make Holiday Baking Fun and Safe

Baking together can be a fun tradition during the holidays. Make sure you and your helpers follow recommendations for handling raw ingredients like flour and eggs. These raw ingredients may contain bacteria that can make people and pets sick if they are eaten before cooking. Young children (under 5yrs.), the elderly, and those with a compromised immune system are most at risk for developing a serious foodborne illness.

Recommendations for Safety:

• Wash hands and food contact surfaces with soap and water before preparing food.
• Do not eat raw dough; Don’t eat, or lick the spoon used to make raw cake batter, cookie dough, or other foods containing raw flour or eggs.
• Wash hands, bowls, utensils, countertops, and food contact surfaces with soap and water after preparing foods containing raw flour or eggs. This helps prevent bacteria from spreading to other foods.
• Don’t let pets eat or lick up spills from foods containing these raw ingredients.

Risks of Raw Flour

Wheat comes from farms and is minimally processed before it is milled into flour and packaged for use.  Because it is raw, it may contain harmful germs, like E coli and Salmonella.

University studies have shown that home pretreatment (microwave or oven) of raw flour to reduce bacterial risks is not effective, and pose additional safety risks, such as fire, and explosion.

So how do companies sell cookie dough ice cream or edible cookie dough? Commercial food manufactures have access to pretreated flour products that are not yet available to the public.

Temptations

It can be hard for children and even adults to resist a small taste of raw dough or batter. If this is the situation in your kitchen, gentle reminders not to eat raw dough at the beginning and throughout the baking session are helpful.  Supervising young helpers in the kitchen is important. If they just can’t resist the urge, let little ones help with the decorating and packaging, after food is fully cooked.

Advantages of Holiday Baking with Family or Friends

• Bonding Activity
• Continue or start a holiday tradition
• Create low cost and meaningful holiday gifts

Fun Family Baking Ideas

For some fun baking recipes with helpful food safety tips included in the directions, check out these: Hot Chocolate Cookies; Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies; or Mini Turtle Cheesecakes, from the Partnership for Food Safety Education website.

Let us know your about holiday baking traditions:  What do you like to bake?  Who do you like to bake with? Do you with traditions that go way back or are the new?