My kids love being involved with anything going on in the kitchen, especially baking. Harry now says his future career is going to be a “cooker.” Whenever my kids show a keen interest in an activity, I like to nurture it. Like watering a seed, you never know what some small idea will grow into. I began searching for kids cooking classes and they are really hard to find. When I finally found Taste Buds Kitchen, I felt like I struck gold.
Taste Buds Kitchen has 11 locations across the US with two of them being in Massachusetts (North Andover and Beverly). They are a kids kitchen by day and BYOB adult kitchen by night. If you don’t have a location near you, don’t sweat it, they do online classes as well!
We had previously signed up for a class right as the pandemic hit, so that got cancelled. They just recently opened back up to in-person classes. It felt very safe- the class sizes are limited, people are spread out, we had our temperature checked at the door and everyone wore masks throughout.
I had been looking for a fun activity to do with the kids on Halloween and their Monster cupcake class was just perfect.
The kitchen is beautiful- it is an open space designed to be a teaching kitchen. We had our own table with the ingredients already measured out into little cups. The kitchen was fully equipped with everything we needed and the organization would have impressed the girls from the Home Edit.
When I bake with my kids, I have to check my inner control freak. I try to let them do something, watch painfully and then I’m all “oh here, just let me do it.” This meme basically sums me up.

So it was kind of nice (for them) for me to take a back seat and let them be in control.
The kids were walked through mixing the ingredients to make batter for the cupcakes and then scooping it into muffin cups. While they cooked in the oven, our instructor read them a story. There was also a coloring activity to keep them busy.
Next was the fun part… they covered their cupcakes with frosting and were given edible candies to decorate with. They each had two cupcakes to take home.
The best part of the whole class… there was NO clean up! I think that’s the most stressful part of cooking with kids. It looks like a flour bomb went off in our kitchen when we are done- to the point that sometimes I just don’t have the energy to do a baking project with them. At Taste Buds Kitchen, they made a big mess and then we just… walked away.
This was the most fun activity we had done in a long time and we can’t wait to go back. They offer camps, which we plan to try next. Check out their event calendar because they have so much going on. It’s a great place for kids birthday parties or work events. Also note that their kitchens are nut-free, so that is one less thing to worry about if your child has allergies.
I highly recommend taking kids cooking classes at Taste Buds Kitchen. It is such a fun activity that your kids will love and gain some good life skills at the same time.