I suspect that the "Child Safety" regulations have ruined the current batch of kid toys. My Easy Bake oven from the 70's used a light bulb, and if you stuck your fingers in there you'd get burned by the light bulb (parental supervision was required in those days). The newer one I got for my kids was awful. REALLY awful. The parental controls were removed in favor of "automatic" safety controls. A poor product resulted, a burned brick comes to mind.
Back then, I could make beautiful little cakes for my Dad. Nowadays, there are so many safety things going on that if you stick your fingers in there they get stuck, and burned, How is that different than the old days? In the past, you could remove your fingers before they got burnt, nowadays your fingers are trapped until they are burned. Whats the difference? All on the premise that the kid can (and does) operate the machine without supervision. Adult supervision is always necessary, and an older machine is the only way to provide edible results. Hope that makes sense. The older machines are better, provided you supply the supervision.
We had a similar situation with Creepy Crawlers. The new machines are AWFUL, but the old machines were dangerous (but productive).. The solution was to use the old machine WITH PARENTAL SUPERVISION. Problem solved!
An even better way (but time consuming) is to teach the child to bake for real. Not that they should be eating that carbage, but it's nice to know how to do it