Tween Program: Cookie Wars

I love baking shows (and just discovered "The Great British Baking Show" which, if you love baking shows, you should have been watching yesterday!) and I'm in to Cupcake Wars on Netflix. Seems like a program ripe for the tweening (new word?), so that's what I did.

Presenting: Cookie Wars! Tween Style!

I had 22 tweens (ages 10 and up - most of them were 10-12) come out for the program. Before they got there, I put out all seven of my tables and covered them in tablecloths from the Dollar Store. DO THIS. It makes clean up a million times easier. (You already knew that, right? I learn things the hard way)

Six of the tables were for the competitors and allowed us to divide quickly and easily into teams. Basically: were you standing at the table with that person? Voila! Team members.

I had materials for four challenges, but we ended up going with three.

First one, taste. They got Nilla Wafers and a secret ingredient of fruit (strawberries, bananas, blueberries, and raspberries) as well as other ingredients (candy, pudding, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, jam). They made seven identical "desserts" and one person from every team helped me judge, scoring 1 for gross and 5 for awesome.

Next one: taste, part two. This time they had Little Bites and had to make something delicious with them. Again, one person from each team helped me judge.

We were running short on time (I had one more taste challenge involving small chocolate chip cookies, but I let that one slide) so I jumped to the last one: appearance. Everyone got a sugar cookie in a bowl and could decorate as they wished as long as it fit the theme: books.

While they made their creations, I tallied up the points so far. I then judged the appearance ones myself and added points to each team at the end.

The Three Bears. 

The kids had a great time with this one and they got to take home their sugar cookie scene so they were happy. The team with the most points got  full sized Hershey bars. Yum!

Things to consider: OMG, you guys, the things I had to taste. It was SO GROSS. Blueberries and smarties? Gummy bears and chocolate pudding and mint? I gave a lot of 1s and 2s. But, on the other hand, the kids thought the banana chocolate pudding combination was disgusting, so maybe I'm the one with the wrong tastebuds.

Verdict: very fun, very chaotic, and a great way to use up leftover candy from December's Gingerbread Houses. (Link is from 2014, candy I used was from the 2015 iteration of the program).