egg shells, frosting & cake batter

Today my partner-in-crime and I decided to be brave and try "cooking" with our kinders. Tomorrow is our whole-school writing celebration (one of my fav days of the year) and just to make it even more special we decided we'd have the kids make cupcakes to serve at the celebration.

Now, my all-time secret of cooking with kids in the classroom is to always make 2 batches- one with the kids and one at home. The one with the kids goes straight to the "oven" also known as a trash can kids don't have access to, and the batch made at home appears after an appropriate cooling time. It really takes some of the stress out of the experience. You don't have to worry about their germy fingers getting into the batter, or egg shells mixing in, or some of the cake mix spilling on the floor and not getting into the cupcakes themselves. And of course, they have no idea. Every child gets to ice one cupcake, and partner-in-crime and I will ice the extras we'll share with the parents. They loved it, and (hopefully) all in all it was fairly germ free.

I was so excited to get a picture of the egg cracking that I forgot to tell my friend how to crack the egg. So of course, he opted for the "squeeze" approach. Note the egg yolk on his hand and the shells in the bowl...

Have you ever seen more icing on a cupcake?  It's nothing but a chocolate/vanilla mountain. It's owner is quite proud of her creation, but my stomach hurts just looking at it.

I love the teamwork cooking creates. Every table worked so hard to stir their batter and get their batter into their cupcake tins.  We ended with batter everywhere, but it was totally worth it.