A few weeks ago, I hosted a much overdue playdate with some old friends. We were meeting up a little before lunch, and they had suggested letting the kids make their own pizzas. I jumped on the idea right away. Feeding toddlers lunch can be tricky, but allowing them to create their own meal put them in their favorite place – the driver’s seat.

For our pizza party, we kept it really simple. Each of us provided pizza supplies – plus a few extras. We used store-bought crust and English muffins for the base, but French bread, pitas or tortillas would work really well too. After baking off the crust, we let the pizzas cool and then, placed them on paper towels in front of each kid. Letting the crust cook and cool was easy, but to make things even simpler, I’d stay away from the dough. Toddlers are not the most patient people, ahem.

For toppings, we had sauce, two kinds of cheese, pepperoni, ground beef, cherry tomatoes and sautéed mushrooms and peppers. But really, you could do just about anything. Pineapple, ham, corn and zucchini would all be fun.

I used muffin tins to organize the pizza toppings, which made it easy for each kid and mom to choose the ingredients that most appealed to them. We let the kids be the chefs, decorating their pizza however they liked. My kid just started eating her “crust.” The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Fruit was a perfect distraction while the pizzas baked for about 8 minutes in a 450 degree oven. Chocolate chip cookies were a fitting ending to a fun event.