Students learn how to make State Fair Classics at Summer Camp
The classroom is usually one of the last places where kids would want to be in the summertime. But that mind-set can easily change when cookies are at stake.
“Chocolate chips. Raisins. Oats. You know, all that good stuff,” said AJ Schneider, a 12-year-old from Crystal.
‘All that good stuff’ is part of the curriculum in the cooking class at the Robbinsdale School District’s Summer Academy.
“It’s really refreshing to teach the summer classes and to have the small class sizes, and the kids that really love to cook,” said McKenzie Kubista, the cooking teacher. “And to have them all together in one room, it’s a lot of fun.”
Kubista has been teaching this class all summer long. Each week, they focus on a different theme. And with the State Fair coming up, this week’s theme is Blue Ribbon recipes, featuring food that you’d find at the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
“We’re gonna make some Sweet Martha’s cookies. That sounds pretty good,” said Schneider. “And some corn dog fried pickles.”
Wednesday’s recipe was a concoction called, ‘coconut dreams,’ which was a top finalist in the State Fair’s 2013 Gold Medal Flour cookies contest.
The kids have to get the recipe just right in order to find the proper balance of coconut and chocolate. And in the process, they actually learn more than how to make a delicious cookie.
“They really learn to work together and that’s, like, a super educational purpose that they have there,” Kubista said. “But then they’re learning how to do the measuring and you can do this and you do that. And by the end of it. They didn’t even realize that they were learning, but they were.”
It’s a learning process that literally never tasted so good.
But aside from getting their sugar fix, the students acquire skills that will benefit them in numerous ways outside the classroom.
“I live with my mom and grandma and siblings, so I was thinking maybe, you know, I could cook meals for them,” Schneider said.
