Though I don't take my kids to kid cooking classes or even watch anything kid-related on TV (I dislike most of it), my personal opinion is that one should try to balance the cooking and take it away from the sweets focus that is often the theme in kids-related cooking clas. Sure, kids will gobble up cupcakes and like making them, but there is so much more. You can also try to think about the kitchen kit that is appropriate for kids and work back from there.
Just some ideas from my end.
1. All things eggs. Cracking eggs are fun. Hand mixers and whisks are fun. Scrambled, sunny side up, filling/folding omelets, and hard boiled are all accessible and I think cooking one thing in different ways is instructive. I've also thought about letting kids salt them (both under and over salting) just to let them understand the difference between seasoning. It may or may not work.
2. Fresh pasta. Again, working dough, wrapping/resting the dough, turning the hand crank to make pasta sheets, and then cutting it with select tools. All kids like pasta. Quick to cook to, and a butter sauce is a winner with kids. Like a cacio e pepe for instance.
3. Prepare dough from that Artisan 15-min bread book and have kids make their own bread rolls. Along with that, get some butter churner and have the kids turn it to make their own butter. If you got small enough containers (non-breakable for younger kids) you could even give the kids their own jars with cream to shake to make their own butter.
4. Guacamole and chips. Smashing avocado is fun for my kids. Maybe get a mezzaluna for herb cutting.
5. A drink maybe. Lemonade versus limeade. Just a thought. Taste the difference between lemons and limes, more or less sugar. There are a lot of juicers that are suitable for kids to extract juice.
6. Any number of dozens upon dozens of sweets, but I made black licorice with my daughter. It might be too messy, but also homemade marshmallows might be interesting if the mess can be managed. Whipped cream in a siphon. A bunch of kids at my house were just amazed by this, but the mess potential is HUGE. One errant discharge and whipped cream can be everywhere.
7. Smelling spices. At the Smithsonian in DC the botanical garden has spices in these metal flowers that kids can smell. My daughter loved that and she still remembers it even though it was 7 years ago. There could always be some basic smelling and tasting component. It's even easy to make it a game if the kids are younger.
8. Knive skills with cucumbers, strawberries, bananas, big grapes -- you know, the easy stuff. You could even get those nylon curious chef knives if you wanted to send something home with the kids (I think they are about $4 a piece). I have one of them and have never used it, so I will throw that out there. My kids always just went for the sexier metal stuff. But for a class it might work.
9. Pizza is always easy.
10. Lastly, some induction burners might be better options if you are using heat with kids. I think some keep a cools surface -- my portable one didn't, but others might.
Just some ideas. Some may be good, others not.
Cheers,
k.
