10-year-old holds kids cooking camp in Brentwood

Nine campers, aged 5-9, enjoyed three days of cooking camp organized by 10-year-old Justine Favazza, of Brentwood, a student at Mark Twain Elementary.

Each day included a craft, a game, and cooking. The campers learned about healthy eating and My Plate, table manners and measuring ingredients. They prepared fruit and veggie dips, mini pizzas, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and rainbow cupcakes.

Justine said she wanted to run a cooking camp because she enjoys cooking and wanted to teach other kids how to cook.

“It’s fun to experiment with recipes and add my own touch to them,” she said.

Mary Favazza reported on the cooking camp and contributed the photos.

Rainbow Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs room temperature
• red food coloring
• blue food coloring
• green food coloring
• yellow food coloring

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 12 cup muffin pans with cupcake liners. Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together the milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract in a separate bowl until evenly blended; set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Pour the flour mixture alternately with the milk mixture, mixing until just incorporated.
3. Divide the cake batter into four separate bowls. Add a few drops of food coloring into one bowl of batter and stir; add more food coloring, if necessary, to reach desired color. Repeat with remaining colors and bowls of batter.
4. Using a different spoon for each color batter, spoon a small spoonful of each color into cupcake liners, until ½ to ¾ full. DO NOT MIX BATTER ONCE IN THE CUPCAKE LINERS! Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Bake for about 15-20 minutes.