This is the starter pack of pretend cooking — a bag of bright plastic pots, lids, a kettle and cutlery that costs less than a takeaway and keeps a three-year-old busy for months. There is no stove to assemble, no batteries and nothing to charge. The pieces come out of the bag and go straight onto a floor, a tray or the edge of a real kitchen while an adult cooks nearby.

The pots are the heart of it. Each one is moulded in a different colour — blue, green, pink, purple, deep red, teal — with two side handles and a separate lid topped by a white knob. Lids that genuinely lift off matter more than they sound: taking a lid off, putting something imaginary in, and putting the lid back is the exact loop a toddler will repeat forty times, and a moulded-shut pot kills it instantly.

Alongside the pots come a spouted kettle, a jug or cup, and a handful of child-sized spoons and forks with coloured handles and white heads. Most packs also carry one large yellow piece — in some it is a flat serving tray, in others a two-burner hob top with white burner rings moulded into it, which gives the pots somewhere to sit while they cook.

Contents are assorted, and that is worth being clear about before you order. We have photographed three packs and no two matched: the header cards differ, and the mix of pots, plates, cups and the yellow piece changes from bag to bag. What stays constant is the character of the set — several lidded pots in different colours, something to pour from, cutlery, and a large yellow base piece.

For a first kitchen toy this is the sensible place to begin. It is light enough to carry outside, cheap enough that a lost lid is not a crisis, and it works as an add-on to a bigger play kitchen later rather than being replaced by one. The pieces are small parts, so keep the set for over-threes and away from a baby who is still mouthing things.

Why this product is worth considering