Tips on teaching a cookie decorating class? - Page 2

Big River Packaging. They have some REALLY cool individual cookie boxes.

Okay Susan,

As President of your fan club, I think I NEED to come and take your cookie class! It will be good background and research in getting your cookie cookbook published! Martha Stewart has NOTHING on you!! If we get enough people from CC, maybe we can do it in a hotel and just rent a banquet hall!

Luv2bake6,

Best way to price it out is to take the cost of your ingredients, and supplies and divide that amongst the kids that you will have in the class. Then add an hourly wage for yourself including your time for set up and clean up. For a 4 day course of 3 hours each day it is $225. It is an amazing idea and teaches children/teens the basics they need as well as giving them the chance to express their creativity in another form. I wish you lots of luck in this endeavour...and remember that your time is worth every penny so charge for it!
Shannie

LOL! As president of my fan club, you wouldn't be biased at all, right?

Yeah seriously Susan, start a thread, see how many people are interested and go from there. I will sign up!

I'd take the class too! When I teach my cookie class it's three hours long and we cover outlining, flooding, flocking, chocolate transfers, fondant, impression mats, textured rolling pins, etc. I have everyone from housewives to teens -- it's my most popular class!

I just wanted to report back that I did it!!! Seven girls and four boys, from 2nd thru 6th grade, learned how to outline and flood, how to get the tie-dye effect and how to pipe designs. I can't tell you how engaged they were the whole time (2 mornings, 1 1/2 hours each) and what gorgeous cookies they all made! I am so proud of every one of them!!!

Tomorrow morning, they're going to put their masterpieces in individual cellophane bags. Then, they'll receive a certificate and the cookie/glace recipes with an ice cream cone-shaped cookie cutter attached. Finally, we'll all celebrate with a glass of cold milk and some graduation cap cookies that I made.

This was a free class that I did at my church, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

SWEET!!! I'm soooo glad it worked out for you!! I always did like teaching the tye dyes, they're soooo easy and everyone loves them. Cool!!! Thanks for sharing that!

I really liked reading this. I'm teaching a class for 5th -8th graders through the local community college. I am a teacher during the school year and do a few weeks of various other summer enrichment classes there. I am clearly not the accomplished decorator like many of you, but I think I can pull this off and it will be a lot of fun.

I proposed this one last November, and it was added to the schedule. The class will be five days, three hours per day (no other options - it's part of a uch larger program). It will be held in the Demo Kitchen, which is really nice. Local chefs come in and teach community ed. classes some evenings - kind of like a live version of the Food Network. I have 7 already signed up, and the class is capped at 10 kids.

The first day, I plan to bring in two 8" layers. I will show the kids how to make buttercream and demonstrate icing and decorating the cake. I ordered the Wilton Icing Fun kits for them, so they will each have 4 tips - I will just be using those 4. With the kids help, I will mix up more icing and they will fill their own bags and start playing. I am making practice sheets, like the ones that come in the back of the Wilton course books, with basic things like shells, ruffles, stars and drop flowers and having them laminated. Before making the icing, we will make brownie batter and place it in the oven to be ready for the next day. Of course, the class will end with sampling my demo cake.

The second day, we will make cupcakes for the next day. We'll mix more icing, color it and practice some more. I will provide a few cookie cutters (not too many choices) to make shaped brownies, and let them decorate them with borders, flowers, etc.

Third day, we will make sugar cookies. I'm a little bit concerned because this will be more time consuming than the other days' baking. We'll mix more icing and decorate the cupcakes. I'll show them how to make balloons, easy monsters, and I'm not sure what else.

Fourth day, we decorate the cookies. I'll show them to make the BC really thin and flood the cookies. We will also make small layer cakes, I have some 4" wide pans ordered.

The last day, we will practice more with borders and drop flowers and decorate the layer cakes. I'll have them wrap 6" cake boards to make them look really nice. I will also probably make some cupcakes with the leftover batter, so we can decorate those if we have time and have something to eat - since they'll want to take their fancy cakes home uncut to show off.

I'm going to be doing all of the baking using mixes, even though I'm usually a scratch baker. I think it will be much less hassle, and the main focus of the class is decorating and not baking.

If anyone has suggestions, I'd be thrilled to hear them.

Thanks!

Wow, Nadine, that sounds like fun!!! It sounds like you have a great lesson plan already. Being a teacher by profession, you'll do just fine -- you'll have the time management skills, you'll know how to get the kids over hurdles they encounter, etc. Hopefully, there won't be any behavior problems but, if there are, you'll be able to deal with those, too! (I was a teacher 26 years ago, but all of those skills came back to me this week -- just like riding a bike. )

The only hint I have is, because you're concerned about the time needed for making the sugar cookies, you might try using a rolling cutter instead of individual shapes. Just roll the dough out in one big slab, and cut the whole thing into squares, using a fluted wheel. It would reduce the cutting time immensely, then you could start explaining the rest of the day's activities while the cookies baked. The cookies would be just as fun to decorate, and the prep time wouldn't be as tedious.

Hey Nadine -- I'm curious about flooding buttercream -- I've never heard of that being done before. I flood with royal icing and I know glace icings are very popular in that regard also. Have you ever flooded with buttercream before?

Flooding with BC is the same idea as flooding with royal. I stick with really simple designs, and don't outline them. I think the outline wouldn't dry very well because it would be so thick (but I have never tried, just assumed).

The results don't look as good as with royal (when I do it, but many of you have better techniques than I do). With this class, I don't want to take the time to teach them to make a second type of icing. Also, with kids I think they would have trouble keeping the royal covered so it doesn't dry out.

Okay, I was just wondering. When I teach the cookies with the royal icing I put it into the plastic bottles used for chocolate -- it helps for those students who have never worked with a pastry bag before and I don't have any problems with the royal drying out. Cool!