Our family recently moved, and as we are getting settled in our new home, I am reminded that cooking in general doesn’t need to be complex. It’s easy to get whipped up, no pun intended, in complicated ingredients and recipes—which I, of course, love. But often the best way to cook is to keep things easy and simple. Kids certainly appreciate when the cooking is kept simple. They’re able to participate with more elements of a recipe, remember steps as they go, and recall recipes in the future. There’s nothing better than when your child feels like they accomplished something on their own (or with very little supervision).

We’re finding our footing in a new house, and the kids are eager to help with any of the furniture assembling, laundry, cleaning, and cooking that they can. The other day we decided to make a simple yogurt cake. Yogurt cake is a really easy thing for kids to make, and once they reach the age or five or six, they can make it almost completely on their own. It’s maybe the easiest cake ever to make, and one that’s really hard to screw up. You need relatively few ingredients, and the recipe can be quickly adapted to what you have on hand, so long as you have a few basic ingredients. All we had on hand when we set out to make is was an 8-inch cake pan borrowed from a neighbor, but this cake is ideally made in a loaf pan—it comes out a bit like pound cake!