Paints And Pastry: Fun With Cookie Painting

by: BJ David
Pictures courtesy of Tracy's Kitchen
2008-04-02

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COOKIES. CUSTOMIZED. Do-it-yourself has never been this delicious.

If there were a list of things that defined kids, an active imagination and a love for sweets would surely be at the top. Keep these two traits in mind whenever you think of activities for kids to do. This guarantees that they will have an enjoyable time, especially in parties.

Thus was born the idea of cookie painting, which goes beyond mere enjoyment as it lets kids explore their visual creativity.

Prepare to meet your baker

KIDS AND COOKIES. A winning combination.

Cookie painting is the brainchild of Ms. Tracy Poblete, proprietor of Tracy's Kitchen.

Tracy is a free spirit, exploring many opportunities and always thinking of innovations. Even though she finished her degree in Interior Design (a board-passer), she decided to not practice it in order to make way for her other endeavors.

She likes to dabble into many different things: desktop publishing, pillow making and, of course, cooking.

She has been in the food business for quite awhile as she supplies some restaurants with pre-packaged foodstuffs, most notably the Garlic Peanuts in The Aristocrat. She also likes to make personalized food items like cupcakes and brownies that people could order as gifts to their friends or giveaways in their events.

Tracy also loves to cook for her two kids. She openly admits that they always taste her creation first as if they were a screening committee. The recipes that pass her children's discriminating palates are guaranteed to suit the taste of any child.

She got the idea of cookie painting when she was decorating cookies with her sister. They had a lot of fun doing it, so she thought it would be fun for the kids to do in parties as well. So she developed the idea and tried it out first in St. Scholastica's College (where she supplies their canteen with cookie lollipops). The school liked the idea and asked her to do it on its Family Day in February. The kids loved it and the rest, as they say, is history.

Artistry and pastry

GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT or to preserve? It's really up to you.

Cookie painting is a very simple yet highly enjoyable activity. Tracy provides the cookies and the materials, and you provide the creativity.

The materials are comprised of: different colored cake frostings that you and the kids could use to decorate the cookies, along with simple tools like brushes, toothpicks and plastic knives.

All you have to do now is sit down and let your kids (or your inner kid) play around with the colors and create something that not only tastes good, but looks good as well. The activity has proven itself to be so fun for the kids that instead of running around and being rambunctious, they stay still and spend all that energy into making their masterpieces.

"It's really fun to watch the kids be creative with the materials," said Tracy, "It's amazing how artistic they can be, like how they turned a bear-shaped cookie into something that looks like Mickey Mouse. Some kids even find their work so nice that they refuse to eat them."

Once you're satisfied with your creation, it is time to bake the decorations onto the cookies so that they can be preserved. Each cookie has a shelf life of one month when stored at room temperature.

While the materials can be easily acquired and can be done with almost any cookie, having Tracy around to supervise the activity is a good idea because she can teach some cookie-painting techniques that you can use in your painting. Another thing that makes Tracy's cookie painting activity a real hit are the cookies themselves because she uses a special cookie recipe (tested by her Quality Control Inspectors a.k.a. her kids) that makes cookies taste like pop tarts.

That's the way the cookie crumbles

CRUNCHY CUTENESS. You can make the cookies as a colorful and as adorable as you see fit.

Cookie painting gives children an enjoyable and organized activity even on a large scale event like a school fair, so it is definitely effective in children's parties and other gatherings that involve children.

It is a very cost-effective activity as it only costs an average of Php6000 to provide enough cookies and materials for a crowd of more than 50 kids (including seconds if some think that one cookie is not enough). It can even be the whole party in itself -- a party that lets the kids get lost in their creativity and translate their imaginations into a delectable treat.

To know more about Cookie Painting and what it can do for your kid parties, you may contact Ms. Tracy Poblete of Tracy's Kitchen at (+63915) 409-9422 (mobile) or at (+632) 844-4009 (landline). You may also e-mail your inquirires to tracys_kitchen@yahoo.com. There are is also more information and pictures on the Tracy's Kitchen website.

If you have any comments and suggestions, you may send them to info@hotoccasions.com. We'd love to hear from you.

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