Kitchen Classroom 2021: Week 50

Welcome to week 50 of Kitchen Classroom, where America’s Test Kitchen Kids is sharing a weekly kid-tested and kid-approved recipe, hands-on experiment, or activity paired with a Learning Moment that brings learning to life in the kitchen.  

In this week’s Kitchen Classroom, kids will bake and decorate Glazed Sugar Cookies in a Weekend Project. After their cookies are baked, kids can explore the wide world of color mixing in this week’s Learning Moment. Then, they can decorate their cookies with different hues of glaze before topping with sprinkles and candies. 

Don’t forget to share what your family makes by tagging @testkitchenkids or using #ATKkids on Instagram, or by sending photos to kids@americastestkitchen.com. Visit the America’s Test Kitchen Kids website for more culinary content designed especially for kids.

Here’s what’s cooking for the week of December 13th through December 19th, 2021.

The dough for these classic cookies is extra easy for kids to roll out and cut into shapes thanks to how it’s mixed in the food processor (see “Food For Thought” at the bottom of the recipe page to learn more). Sprinkling the glazed cookies with sprinkles or sanding sugar while the glaze is still wet makes them extra festive and perfect for gifting! Make sure your butter is very cold before adding it to the food processor in step 3.
[GET THE RECIPE]

What You’ll Need
For the Cookies:
1½ cups (7½ ounces) all-purpose flour
⅛ teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (3½ ounces) sugar
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and chilled

For the Glaze:
1⅓ cups (5⅓ ounces) confectioners' (powdered) sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon cream cheese, softened
1-2 drops food coloring (optional)
Sprinkles or sanding sugar (optional)

Learning Moment
Visual Art (Color):
Kids can use food coloring to turn the white glaze in this recipe into different colors. Divide the glaze into different small bowls, and experiment with adding drops of food coloring to each one and mixing it in to create different colors. Ask kids if they can name the three primary colors: yellow, red, and blue. These colors cannot be made from other colors. Secondary colors are made by mixing two primary colors together. Ask kids if they know (or can figure out by experimenting with food coloring) what secondary colors they can make from different combinations of the primary colors:

Yellow + Red = Orange
Red + Blue = Purple
Blue + Yellow = Green

For a fun explanation of primary and secondary colors, check out this video!

Then, explain to kids that artists use the color wheel to organize and think about how colors relate to each other. It places all of the colors in rainbow order in a circle shape.

The colors on the right side of the wheel (between yellow and purple going clockwise) are called warm colors, and the colors on the left side (between purple and yellow) are called cool colors. Artists can find colors that look good together by putting them into warm or cool groups, or by picking contrasting colors from opposite sides of the wheel. 

Challenge kids to create their own color wheel using objects they find around the house. Can they find all of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors and put them in order?

Catching up on Kitchen Classroom? Find previous weeks using the links below:

• Kitchen Classroom 2021
• Kitchen Classroom 2020