Teen Iron Chef

As part of our teen summer reading program I am trying out a Teen Iron Chef Competition. The teens will work in pairs to create a dessert using the ingredients I give them. Because of the international theme this summer I will include ingredients from other countries to introduce teens to some new foods. I had them make one dessert and an accompanying drink. Each team gets one fancy plastic plate to display their dessert on and a fancy glass too in addition to their prep plates and utensils. Steer clear of any nuts or peanut butter in case any participants have allergies.

Food Shopping List:

• Marshmallow Fluff
• Sprinkles
• Interesting things from the Asian, Indian, British or other import markets
  
• Colorful Icing
• Chocolate Chips
• Chocolate Syrup
• Cream Cheese
• Milk
• Ice
• Lemonade
• Ice-Tea
  
• Canned Fruit
• Jelly
  
• Pudding
  

A local chef, a teachers, and our executive director will score each dessert/drink team using a ruberic. The teams will need to present their creations to the judges and give their dessert a name.

The judges will score from 1-5 on the following categories:

• Creativity
• Presentation
• Taste

Teams may choose at least 3 ingredients and have 30 minutes to complete their creations. The winning team both get a copy of the book "Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs."

Here is how I ran the program:

Before the event Volunteens help put out all the supplies on the ingredients table. We created a seperate table for drinks with the blenders and ice. When the teens arrived (I had about 25) they broke into teams of two and went to their table to choose a name for their group (some memorable ones such as "Team Sheen", and "The Winners"). They had 5 minutes to look at ingredients and plan their dish.

After they knew what they wanted to make they had to come up to dish out their ingredients onto their prep plates. They had a total of 45 minutes (could be shorted with a smaller group) to make their dish. After they were done we had the judging which took about 30 minutes due to the volume of dishes.

Each judge had a score sheet (click here for the sheet) where they scored the F (food) and the D (drink.) The three judges included a local chef, English teacher, and our Executive Director. They were such good sports about it and I gave them each a gift for volunteering their time (and stomachs).

All in all the kids had a blast and that made this one of our most successful teen programs ever!