Free Baking Class at River Market

Each kid gets to wear an apron!

Last week the sprog & I took the train out to New Westminster to try out a little kids' baking class at the River Market. This was all part of some 'research' I was doing for a Vancouver Mom article on kids programs at the River Market. (Check out my Vancouver Mom article for more on all the other stuff for kids aged 1-12, including summer camps) We arrived early (don't faint--I was surprised too) & Sprout ran around the Food Hall exclaiming at all the 'gwahges' (there are roll-up garage doors on all the businesses) while River Market staff Melissa & Pamola Bakery owner Katia set up for the class.

After donning little aprons, each of the dozen or so children was given a lump of cookie dough to knead & roll out. Then they got to use cookie cutters to create quite a few cookies each. Sprout hasn't really ever been interested in play dough the few times I've offered, but he got into the rolling & cutting.

Carefully adding sprinkles.

All the cookies were laid out on trays with each child's name written on the parchment. While the cookies baked, Katia & Melissa handed out chocolate cupcakes to decorate. This reminded me instantly of the Stanford marshmallow experiment. A few of them got nibbled while the kids waited for the cream cheese icing to be distributed. Next the kids got to add a few other colours of icing as well as several kinds of sprinkles. Sprout definitely ate more sprinkles than he put on the cupcake.

Too pretty to eat?

Once the cupcake masterpieces were finished, they got eaten pretty quickly, except for Sprout's. Oddly, he didn't seem at all interested in having any. He finally had a few pieces from the bottom, but didn't eat any of the icing. At that point, all the cookies came out of the oven & we were handed a little bag with Sprout's name on it, full of delicious sugar cookies. I noticed that despite serious variation in the thickness of the cookies rolled out by all the little bakers, none of them seemed to be over- or underdone.

Bag of treats to take home.

The River Market's free kids' baking classes happen at 10-11am every Tuesday in the Food Hall of the River Market.