How To Create A Dessert Contest The Kids Love

Consider A Dessert Contest

A dessert contest will add to your holiday festivities! Our annual family dessert contest began in 2010. So many of the Food Network cooking shows were such a hit, it seemed a perfect idea to add an activity that everyone could enjoy in one way or another. Those who participate and are competitive love the challenge. Those who love desserts win because everyone gets to taste the entries.

How To Create A Dessert Contest The Kids Love — Dessert Contest Cookies

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Each Christmas Eve at five o’clock we have a dessert contest. By that time, the dining room table is full of mini desserts. We place a number by each entry, which coordinates with a number on the scoring sheet. As our family expands, the number of desserts increases. Even the grandchildren are submitting their desserts as entries! My granddaughter, Sophia, has won a couple of times. The tree cookies above are an entry a few years ago. She is really serious about this contest!

[ctt template=”8″ link=”xpgdT” via=”no” ]A dessert contest will add to your holiday festivities! The competitive love the challenge. Dessert lovers win because everyone gets to taste the entries![/ctt]

Choosing The Theme For A Dessert Contest

Each year at Thanksgiving, we choose a theme for the dessert contest. In the past, we have used snowman, snowflake, Santa, holly, gingerbread man, Christmas tree, and peppermint. Sophie seems to always have a hand in this choice. This girl is driven and loves to bake. She has already asked me what the theme is and, together, we decided to make ‘Christmas Mitten’ the theme for this year. We are a little ahead this season!

Jon-Michael suggested that the mitten idea is too simplistic. I suggested that it could be as complex as he wishes and if he wanted, he could make a reindeer antler and hang mitten cookies from it! He laughed and said he has an idea! Can’t wait!

Make Rules For A Dessert Contest

Here’s a caution for you to consider when planning your contest. If you don’t want your whole family to go into a sugar coma, you will want to make the rule that each dessert is one or two bites. Mini desserts are perfect for this contest. They are easier to serve and less messy.

Scoring and Prizes

Each year, I make a scoring card with the chosen theme featured in the header. I use PicMonkey.com to create these cards. At first, I used an entire sheet of paper for the cards but later decided to make them smaller to fit two to a page.

Everyone gets a scoring card and is a judge. The younger kids have a lot of fun with this. If they are too young to read, someone helps them with their card and they still get to participate. It is interesting that some of them are very serious about the scoring, really study the desserts, follow the rules, and score the desserts from one to ten. Then, there are others who laugh and giggle over how they are scoring. I do enjoy their silliness, too.

We award three prizes, one for first-place, second, and third. The prizes are always food or baking-related items. In the past, the prizes are cookie cutters, cooking books, baking pans, etc. I am always on the lookout for items for these prizes all year long.

Feel free to copy any of our scoring cards for your personal use. You can find posts on our past contests and the scoring cards ◄ here.

Utilize Your Mathematician

Jon-Michael, who enjoys math, tallies the scores and a first, second, and third prize winner is chosen. The first prize winner gets to choose from the three wrapped prizes. Then, the second prize winner chooses and the third gets the remaining prize.

It is a fun time and the kids really do enjoy the desserts, the judging, and seeing what the winners receive. Each year, they start talking about what they would like to make when Thanksgiving draws near.

We have a BIG GIVEAWAY from our Sponsors this year!

Giveaway begins Nov. 8, 2019, and ends Dec. 6, 2019. Winners will be notified by December 13, 2019. Sponsors will ship each prize to the winner. There will be a total of six winners, one for each prize. Drawing is by random selection using the Rafflecopter widget.

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