I love simple recipes for teaching children how to measure, mix, and cook. Here’s a fun dessert that even very young children can make with little or no help. There’s no stove or even measuring involved. And it only takes a few minutes to make.
Root beer floats! All you need is a tall glass, vanilla ice cream, and some root beer soda. Put a couple of scoops of ice cream in the glass. Slowly add the root beer, or the glass will fill up with foam instead of soda. Add a straw if you want, and enjoy. That’s all there is to it.
You may need to help very small children with scooping the ice cream, and with pouring if you have a heavy two liter bottle of soda. But mainly, kids can do all of this by themselves. And they are very proud when they can make the dessert all by themselves.
I’ve actually served root beer floats to company before. The children are delighted, but so are the adults. I always hear comments like “I haven’t had one of these in years” and “Wow, I’d forgotten how good these are.”
And root beer floats are good. They taste sweet and fun. You can vary the recipe to fit other tastes, or just to use what you have in the freezer. Cola-flavored sodas are good ones to try. Orange soda with vanilla ice cream is fun too. We also like orange soda with orange sherbet. My boys like root beer soda with chocolate ice cream. I love chocolate, but I’m not a huge fan of that mixture. Our local ice cream store makes chocolate cream sodas with seltzer water, chocolate syrup, milk, and chocolate ice cream. That’s a little more complicated, but still easy enough for most young cooks.
Have fun, enjoy your float, and remember to compliment the cook!
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