Yesterday afternoon, I had the pleasure of working with 6 enthusiastic bakers!  They made some delicious treats from scratch: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, strawberry ice cream and fresh berry sauce.  Along the way, they ALL tasted some of the ingredients: pure vanilla extract, real lemons, buttermilk and cocoa.  It was a fun afternoon!  Here's what we did:

• We started with the strawberry ice cream because it has to set up for an hour or so in the fridge. The kids got to use the food processor to chop up the strawberries, and measured and whisked together the remaining ingredients (whole milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla) to make the base for the ice cream. They were surprised how few ingredients they needed!

• Next they made the cupcakes. This was when they tasted several ingredients and discovered that individually they might not taste so great, but when incorporated into a recipe they can make something delicious! They also learned that you typically mix the dry ingredients together, and separately mix the wet ingredients together before you combine them. Some of the dry ingredients (such as baking powder) start to work once combined with liquids! They used an ice cream scoop to fill the muffin tins...it's an easy way to make the cupcakes a uniform size.

• Next up was the frosting. They were surprised how easy it was to make! Four ingredients in the food processor and Viola! we had delicious cream cheese frosting!

• The berry sauce was a hit! They liked using the stove, and I had no trouble getting volunteers to keep stirring the berries, lemon juice, rind, and other ingredients for 10 minutes. They learned that cornstarch can be used as a thickener. They also were really excited to grate the lemon peel and everyone wanted to try a bit of the lemon. Where's the emoji for "pucker" when you need it?!

It was a very fun group of kids and I think they really enjoyed the class AND eating their creations!