Cook This: 3 recipes for cooking with children from Paris's Rose Bakery, including breakfast crêpes

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Our cookbook of the week is Breakfast, Lunch, Tea with Children by Rose Carrarini, co-founder of Paris’s Rose Bakery, with her daughter, nutritional therapist Marissa-Catherine Carrarini.

Jump to the recipes: breakfast crêpes, cranberry and oat scones, and chicken balls with teriyaki sauce.

The idea for Rose Carrarini’s third cookbook, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea with Children (Phaidon, 2025), took root during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Watching her then four-year-old granddaughter, Ada-Rose, perched on a stool stirring melted chocolate through the computer screen was one of the sparks of inspiration. “The scariest thing ever,” says Rose, laughing. “But it worked, and it made a lovely photograph. I’ve still got it.”

Rose, who founded Rose Bakery in Paris, France, with her husband, Jean-Charles Carrarini, didn’t often cook with their children. The couple spent a decade designing knitwear collections and visiting cities such as Milan and Tokyo. “I was always very, very busy, and we didn’t have much time to cook with them. And they weren’t that interested, frankly. My daughter was vaguely interested. I was cooking, and she’d chat.”

When the oldest of Rose’s four grandchildren passed toddlerhood, “I learned to deeply love cooking with little ones.”

The weekly cooking lessons she held with Ada-Rose and her brother, Elijah, on Zoom during the pandemic helped inform the book (which Rose wrote with their mother and her daughter, nutritional therapist Marissa-Catherine Carrarini).

“It’s a bit idyllic for me to say, ‘Every time I’m in the kitchen, they join me.’ They don’t. It depends on the mood of the day and what they want to do. Sometimes they’ll say, ‘Yes, can I help you, Granny Rose?’ And then sometimes they would say, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to do that.’ So, it’s very much at the moment — a thing that happens sometimes.”

It’s too soon to tell with her younger grandchildren, but Rose’s lessons stayed with Elijah, now 14. Even though, as a teenager, he has other interests, Elijah is the one people rely on to bake cakes for birthday parties and other celebrations. “So, what I’ve taught him was very important, and he’ll have that, I suppose, all his life. He’ll know how to make a cake.”

The way Rose Bakery chef Aska Yoshino cooks with her two young sons at home also offered inspiration. Unlike Rose’s grandchildren, Yoshino’s kids like vegetables. “I teach my children that the way vegetables are prepared, especially how they’re cut, can change the taste, aromas and finish of the meal,” the chef said in the book. Recipes such as a spiky beet and apple salad came from Yoshino’s household, where the young cooks carefully cut the produce into matchsticks.

“It’s a different way of cooking with the children than I do. That’s because my children are really fussy — super fussy — and that’s why some of the recipes I’ve done are quite simpler than they could be, like the chicken balls (with teriyaki sauce). If I were doing it for myself, the restaurant or other people, I would put chopped herbs and all kinds of things in it. But for the children, I had to make it very plain. It’s very, very plain, not very spicy.”

As anyone who’s cooked with children knows, it can be challenging to hold their interest and keep the pace up. More important than the outcome is that they enjoy what they’re doing and have fun with it, says Rose — to achieve something that makes them proud and piques their interest in food.

Rose initially hesitated when her publisher asked if she would write another book. “I didn’t want to do it because I felt that I said everything I had to say about our recipes in the first one (Breakfast, Lunch, Tea; originally published in 2006 and reissued in 2025), although that’s actually wrong because we’ve gone so far away from that in many ways. And in my kitchens at Rose Bakery, we don’t work from recipes — apart from the pastry, that is. We work very much instinctively, so to do recipes again was a bit of a nightmare for me,” she says, laughing.

It was Marissa-Catherine who convinced Rose to dive in, becoming her co-author. “She’s brilliant at writing. So, she’s the one who finally persuaded me, ‘Come on, Mom. I write it, you do the recipes,’ and that’s how we did it.”

The 50 recipes range from scrambled eggs and crêpes to more complex okonomiyaki and madeleines. Rose and Marissa-Catherine wrote Breakfast, Lunch, Tea with Children not as a kids’ book but as a guide for adults who want to cook with the young people in their lives.

In 1987, Rose and Jean-Charles left careers in fashion for food. After running a restaurant and food shop in London, they moved to Paris and opened the first Rose Bakery in 2002. Today, they have locations in London, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.

After decades of cooking professionally, spending time in the kitchen with her grandchildren has taught Rose a few things. “I’ve learned to be more forgiving and patient and, in many ways, more organized. You have to be organized when you’re cooking with children. They have to have not only a safe place to work but also to know what they’re doing.”

She’s also learned to give them space to express themselves and to be easygoing about messes. Rose recalls one virtual lesson with Elijah and Ada-Rose, during which they managed to dust every surface with flour. “The whole kitchen was a complete bombshell. And we all had to laugh about it because, otherwise, you just start crying.”

BREAKFAST CRÊPES

Serves: 4

Equipment:
Small saucepan
Pitcher
Whisk
Sieve
Large bowl
Large frying pan
Fish spatula

1 1/2 tbsp butter, plus extra for frying
2 large eggs
3/4 cup (175 mL) milk
1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
Maple syrup, lemon and sugar, cinnamon sugar or honey, to serve

Step 1

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

Step 2

In a pitcher, whisk together the eggs, milk, melted butter and generous 1/2 cup (125 mL) water.

Step 3

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and carefully whisk to create a homogeneous mix. Refrigerate for at least an hour but preferably overnight.

Step 4

Heat a little butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Pour in a thin layer of batter, tilting the frying pan to spread the batter evenly. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until the bottom is lightly browned. Using a fish spatula, flip the crêpe and cook for another 3 minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and repeat with the remaining batter.

Step 5

Serve with your favourite toppings.

CRANBERRY AND OAT SCONES

Serves: 6-8

Equipment:
Baking sheet
Parchment paper
Large bowl
Wooden spoon
Food processor (optional)
Medium bowl
Rolling pin
5-cm (2-inch) cookie cutter
Small bowl
Fork or whisk
Pastry brush (optional)
Wire rack

7 tbsp butter, plus extra for greasing
Generous 1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
Generous 1 cup (125 g) whole-wheat flour
4 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup (60 g) oats
2/3 cup (160 mL) buttermilk
1 cup (125 g) dried cranberries
Zest of 1 orange
1 egg, for glazing

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 190C (375F). Grease a baking sheet, then line it with parchment paper.

Step 2

In a large bowl, combine both flours, the sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and oats. Mix well using a wooden spoon.

Step 3

Add the butter. Using clean fingers, blend together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (Alternatively, use a food processor to mix the mixture.)

Step 4

Combine the buttermilk, cranberries and orange zest in a medium bowl. Add this to the other bowl and combine until it forms a dough. (It can be nice to use your hands for this, but watch out for over-keen little hands, as it is important not to overwork the dough.) The dough should not be wet or sticky.

Step 5

Lightly dust a clean work counter with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough about 4 cm (1 1/2 inches) thick. Cut out the scones. Place them on the prepared baking sheet, evenly spacing them 5 cm (2 inches) apart.

Step 6

In a small bowl, whisk the egg with a fork or whisk. Using your fingers or a pastry brush, brush the egg glaze on top of each scone. Bake for 12 minutes, or until lightly golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

CHICKEN BALLS WITH TERIYAKI SAUCE

Serves: 4

Equipment:
Sharp knife
Cutting board
Grater
Medium saucepan
Wooden spoon
Fine-mesh sieve (optional)
Medium bowl
Large frying pan
Plate
Baking dish

For the teriyaki sauce:
1 onion
1 (5-cm/2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled
1 tbsp olive oil or sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sake (optional)

For the chicken balls:
700 g (1 lb 9 oz) ground chicken or 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 onions
5 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp breadcrumbs or panko
1 egg
1/2 tbsp soy sauce (optional)
1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
Salt and pepper, to taste

FOR THE TERIYAKI SAUCE

Step 1

Finely chop the onion. Grate the ginger.

Step 2

Heat the olive oil or sesame oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and ginger and sauté for 5 minutes, until the onion is softened, translucent and without colour. If necessary, add a splash of water and reduce the heat.

Step 3

Add the soy sauce, mirin, sugar and sake, if using. If you want a lighter sauce, you can add a tablespoon of water. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until slightly thickened and syrupy. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool. Some people like the sauce with the onions and ginger, some people like the sauce strained and smooth — either way is lovely.

FOR THE CHICKEN BALLS

Step 1

Finely chop the chicken breasts, if using. Put the chicken into a medium bowl.

Step 2

Thinly slice the onions.

Step 3

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté for 7 minutes, until softened, translucent and golden. If the onions start to turn dark, add a splash of water and reduce the heat.

Step 4

Using the flat part of the knife, press the garlic against the cutting board. Repeat the motion until a fine paste forms. Add the mashed garlic, then season with salt and pepper. Cook for another minute.

Step 5

Transfer the onion mixture to the bowl of chicken. Mix with a wooden spoon.

Step 6

Add the breadcrumbs, egg and soy sauce, if using. Mix with a wooden spoon. (This is definitely a fun task for younger children, as the mixture is squishy and can’t be over-mixed.) Stir in the cayenne pepper, if using.

Step 7

In the palm of your hands, roll a tablespoon of mixture into a golf-sized ball. (The balls can range in size, depending on the size of your hands. A combination of sizes can also make a more interesting plate!) Place on a plate, then repeat with the remaining balls.

Step 8

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

Step 9

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the chicken balls and turn continuously for 10 minutes, until golden. Transfer to a baking dish. Pour the teriyaki sauce over the chicken balls and roll them in the sauce until the balls are evenly coated. Add any remaining sauce. Bake for 10 minutes, until glossy and cooked through.

Recipes and images excerpted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea with Children ©2025 by Rose Carrarini with Marissa-Catherine Carrarini. Photography ©2025 by Anne-Claire Héraud. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.

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