Teaching A Cake Decorating Class..to Kids!
Decorating By ebera Updated 4 Feb 2014 , 2:02am by Supermom35
I don't usually spend much time on the forums, but I really don't know where else to turn! I've been asked to teach a group of 8-12 year old girls (a group of about 10) a little bit about cake decorating.
I am a fairly new at this myself, but i enjoy it. I've only taken the 1st wilton class (I just haven't had time to finish them) And if you were to look at my pictures you would see I'm not very traditonal. I don't use the basic borders...and i NEVER DID get that stupid rose right!
So, on to my question. What should i do with them?! I'd like to have their own little cake for them to decorate. should i do a 6''. Or I have the giant muffin cups, we might could do mini doll cakes? Or i could roughly use the wilton course 1 book and teach them those basics, and then turn them loose on their cakes.
I think I have a couple of weeks to get ready. She asked me yesterday to do it today, but I said please give me more time! So, I am not exactly sure when. But any ideas any of you brilliant decorators have...I am open!
Hi there:
I recently gave a cupcake decorating workshop to my daughter's Brownie troop. I ordered the Kid's Kits from Wilton (the troop paid for them) which they got to keep. You can look under the cupcake fun tab on the Wilton website for ideas. First, I gave them a brief tutorial using the practice sheet template which you can download from the site. I covered the template with transparency sheets. Then, I picked three different designs to work on - the purse, the flower and the princess crown. I know you said you wanted to do small cakes...but I just wanted to pass along my info to help you out.
If you need more info, send me a PM. 
I would do the giant cupcakes, out of the wrappers tho. Have them torted/leveled ahead of time. Or, if you wanna be baking all day - little 4in cakes (boy that would take a while )
Just teach them the basics - crumb coating, icing, smoothing, and some sweetpeas/rosebuds/leaves and a couple of cute borders. If they want to get creative, have handouts for other borders/flowers and you can take individual questions while the other girls are doin' their decorating thing
Have fun with this one! LOVE to teach kids!!! Just don't go all OCD on them 
sunbeam1,
I think a kids class would be so much fun! I had a couple of kids cupcake classes schedule this summer, though I couldn't get the registration I needed to hold the classes.
I would recommend that you use the Wilton "Cake Decorating Beginner's Guide" as sort of a handbook. It offers a few techniques and a few cake designs that the kids could work from. It also allows for a minimal number of tips needed for the class. You can choose to teach as much or as little as you want this way. The book can be picked up at any Hobby store that carries it for around $3 or $4. It would also be a book that the kids could refer to later...there are some really cute "kid friendly" cake and cupcake designs in there.
HTH and have fun! I have so much fun teaching my 8 year old (and my 4 year old) how to decorate. There is nothing cuter than hearing a 4 year old boy say the word "gumpaste!"
Hi
I teach 7th grade and each year after our state tests we do activities with the kids and I've done cake decorating the last two year. It's a huge amount of work on my part..but fun! I baked each participant their own 6 inch cake..basic cake box batter..nothing fancy. I went to Sam's Club and got their 20 lb. bucket of buttercream (I did this with 60 kids). I showed them how to ice a basic cake and also showed them the paper towel method of smoothing---they thought that was pretty cool!! Then I taught them some basic cake terminology--piping bags, tips, couplers, and showed them how to color icing and also how to fill a piping bag. I think I chose 5 basic tips..star, round, etc. Then I had stations around my room. Each station had a color and then a few bags that I had already filled with icing in each of them...each also had a different tip. I demonstrated how to use each of the five tips and what they'd look like on my demo cake in front of them...then I split them up and they moved around the room with their group like a train...they could add a new color at each station if they chose or some did their whole cake with one color..it was up to them, which was the best part...they chose entirely what to do. They were really good!! Two years ago I went to a cake shop and bought 6 inch cake boards, last year they did them on plates due to budget issues. Hopefully this was helpful! Good luck!
Anita
I have heard of cake decorating parties before and think it's a fantastic idea. I'd love to do those eventually myself.
I think a 6" cake for each girl is good. I've heard people put bags together of different colors as well as maybe bags with changeable tips (Disposable bags are probably great for this).
I'm sure you'll do great! Just show them how you were shown and some basic things you know otherwise and have fun! =D
With that age group going simple is your best bet. Think stars, dots, swirls, clowns, figure piped faces, bow, writing, maybe the shell border. You could also do the drop flowers.
Skip over anything involving stiff icing, many of them won't have the hand strenght to work with it.
Also I would keep what you show them pretty simple as well. Think about how Course 1 Lesson 1 is so overwhelming with information. I always tell my students that i know it is information overload, and don't except them to remember every little thing I said. Same thing happens with kids. I would go with few fun things for them to do than to have the 2 hours or how ever long you have totally filled with things to do. They are going to want to just play with the icing bags.
Also for the icing bags, be sure to get some bag ties or rubberbands and close the tops off for them. That will make piping alot easier.
For my one daughter's birthday we did something similar to what bubbles4500 suggested, except we used cupcakes. There were about 8 6yo girls, and they all had a blast (some were actually pretty good too.)
I guess it depends on how much time you want to put into it. For my birthday (I'll bake my own cake, but I won't decorate it.) I baked 4 6" cakes, and each of my daughters, ages 2 1/2, 5, almost 7, and 11 each decorated their own cake for me. I think I had as much fun as they did, and I just watched. Whatever you decide, have fun with it and they will too. Good luck.
Very good idea about the rubber bands, we forgot to do that!
(edited to correct spelling)
http://www.wilton.com/classes/icing-fun/
this link has lesson plans practice sheets and info on ordering mini kits think i may do this for my daughters birthday.
I do these all the time as birthday parties.
I make 6" cakes and put them on cake boards or small styrofoam plates.
Mix all the colors (5 of the popular colors--pink, purple, teal or sky blue, lime green and yellow). Make 3 bags of each color (the parties I do are a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 15). Give each child a cake and a spatula for frosting.
Show them how to crumb-coat a cake (and why), they crumb-coat theirs, then frost with more frosting. I show them how to make stars or the shell border or just a zig-zag border. Then let them go.
In the meantime--My niece is helping them and I am doing the BD party cake for them to eat. Sometimes, I show them how I make roses with buttercream frosting but I usually just end up making roses for everyone's cakes. If I have leftover fondant, then I give everyone 3 circles and let them make Duff's roses.
I did a class at my church for about 15 girls. It was 4 weeks about an hour long each. I baked mini cupcakes the first week and we built a butterfly pull apart and they learned the star and round tip. Week two I baked mini hearts and they learned to stripe the sides, rosette the top and add a bow. Week three they made fondant mini ribbon roses and pieces for a white picket fence. Week four they iced a small round 6", applied their fence on the sides and made a garden on top with brown sugar and their roses and vegetables. I'll be ahppy to send pictures to your e-mail if you like. Good luck!
Sweetrocky
I am going to be teaching a one hour afternoon studio at my daughter's school once a week for the fall semester that is for 1st graders and up (ok, what was I thinking when I said yes to this, I don't know???!!!) But, I found that Wilton has alot of great information on their site and even a lesson plan that you can print. I ordered the decorating kits from them so at the end of the semester, the kids will be able to take it home. I have also been going through the Wilton site and printing various instructions for different techniques/decorations from the very basic to a medium difficulty that I will hand out. Also, part of the printable lesson plan contained some practice sheets (kind of like what you get in the 1st class Wilson kit) and what I plan on doing is getting some heavy duty plastic page protectors that they can slip the practice sheets into so they can practice on the plastic protector and I was going to make just the regular Wilton crisco BC for practice icing. And then make good half crisco half butter BC for stuff they will eat.
The teacher who used to teach this class is leaving to get her PhD so she also gave me some tips. She said somedays they would practice piping on graham crackers, cookies, etc. I am planning on starting out with that and then Oct/Nov bring in cupcakes and then in December for the last 2 weeks we'll do small 6" cakes.
I have also been looking at the pictures on this site and on flickr (of cupcakes specifically) to get ideas of various decorations/designs that maybe the kids can do.
For the birthday parties, I charge $20.00 a child...they get to take their decorated 6" cake home as the party favor. I also include a 8" box for the cakes.
And sometimes, I do get the bucket of Sam's buttercream frosting for the class if I am tight on time and have lots of weekend cake orders.
i have taught this exact age group at church, and we had FUN!! 
Just remember that the younger ones especially will just want to pile as much frosting on their cake as they can, they may not have the focus to really decorate.
I copied some templates on a copier and taped them to the counter and put waxed paper over that with tape also. I let them practice drop stars and shells before starting on their cake.
I just had little cakes already iced for them, and they smoothed them in class. Then I just let them decorate and have fun!
i have been asked to teach classes as well. just beginner stuff nothing to advance. (mostly because im NOT that advance).
my question is (sorry to jump on your post!)-
can you teach wilton techniques even though they are not advertised as a wilton course.
my interpretation is a bit different.
just curious.
thanks!
and good luck with your class!!!
I'm not really qualified to answer this question, but are you talking about teaching a wilton class or just a party? If it is a wilton class, I don't believe you are supposed to teach anything but wilton, but I know my teacher was open to all suggestions. If it is a party I don't see why not! HTH!
I would think you will be ok as long as you are clear that you are not affiliated or employed by Wilton and are not advertising that this is a Wilton sponsored or backed class, but do give credit to them if you are using their teaching materials. They do make available on their website the class curriculum for teaching to children, so they obviously are not against people printing and using the material and I haven't seen anything that says "If you print and use this material then this is the only method or material you can use." I am using the Wilton class curriculum, but I am also using other methods & materials and I am giving credit where credit is due, so I am not worried.
AI would love to see pics....trying to arrange my own set of cake decorating classes
AOops....email is malyassweettreats@gmail.com
I did this with the exact same age group. Like some of the others said, I provided 6" cakes for each kid. I iced each cake smooth and put it on a board. Then I made several colors, a couple bags of each color, with a coupler on each bag. I traced a couple of patterns of flowers and a heart on paper (you could also use cookie cutters) and let the girls use toothpicks to trace around the patterns, so they had a template to trace over. I showed them how to hold the bag, how to do a line, basic shells, etc, and just let them go to town. They had so much fun and it was pretty easy to set up, clean up, etc. They also loved it because they were able to take something home that was already completely decorated and it was so much more satisfying to complete something.
Most of all, have fun with it!
Hi Ladies!
My daughter just had a cake decorating party and it was great! The staff taught them the basics while having fun! The kids brought home a cake AND cakepops! It was the best birthday she every had! Check them out!
www.alittletasteofheavensite.com
Hi Ladies
I gave my daughter a cake decorating class through www.alittletasteofheavensite.com .
It was great! The staff went above and beyond for the party. After learning how to ice and decorate the cake, the kids brought home their own decorated cake and cake pops and were so excited! The energy was great and my little girl had a blast with her friends! The best part was that I didn't have to lift a finger!
Good luck on your search!
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