How to Throw an Iron Chef Throw Down Children's Party

Children love to create whether it's drawing a picture, making a craft, building sand castles, playing with play dough or making cupcakes. My girls are always asking if they can make something. It doesn't matter to them what materials they use to make something. One thing that the girls love to do is help me cook. I enjoy teaching them about food, food safety and showing them techniques I have learned in the kitchen. One of my girls loves cooking so much that she started to really enjoy the "Food Network Challenges" and the "Iron Chef" shows at the age of 3.

A really fun idea is to throw an Iron Chef Children's Party. This could be something neat to do at the end of the week for those that run a daycare, it's an excellent idea for a unique children's birthday party or something fun for the kids to do at a family reunion. An Iron Chef party can be held inside if you have a big enough kitchen to accommodate your guests or you could set up the grill outside and cook there if you have more room outdoors. If you don't have room in your home or in your yard consider taking grills to a public, state or national park. This may be a better idea if you can set up near playground equipment and the kids can go play while they wait for their masterpieces to finish cooking.

Send your guests invitations that give them an idea of what to expect. Make the invitations in the shape of chef's hats, aprons, mixing bowl, or the shape of the foods they might be cooking like a pizza shaped invitation. You could write something on the front of the invitation like "How Do You Iron Chef?" or "Are You Read For a Throw Down?"

When your guests arrive give them a chefs hat or an apron to wear while they make their food and this can also be their party favor. Or your party favors could go along with the theme of the food at your party for example, give pizza cutters as party favors if you'll be making pizzas or cookie cutters if your making cookies.

Pizza is a fun party food that most kids like to eat and will enjoy making as well. Set up bowls of toppings that the kids can choose from and place them in the middle of the table. Give each child a small ball of dough that they can form into a personal sized pizza crust. Or you can use other types of bread for the dough like already made pita bread or refrigerated biscuits make great mini pizza dough as well. Then let the children spread on the pizza sauce, cheese and other toppings. The pizzas can be cooked in an oven or on a grill.

Remember to keep track of who made what pizza. It might be easier to give each child a number and only cook certain numbers at one time. When the pizzas come out of the oven, place the appropriate number next to the pizza. Then cut the pizzas into numerous pieces so that each guest can try each other's pizza. Now the fun part is to have all the guests vote on the best pizza. The winner could get a little door prize.

Another fun food throw down idea is to have a sandwich-making contest. Sandwich makers can be a lot of fun for kids to create their own special sandwich. You can make a sandwich making bar and set up a couple of sandwich makers for the kids to use. Some ideas for ingredients are pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni to make pizza pocket type sandwiches. Different types of meat like ham, bologna, turkey, a selection of cheeses, and veggies so that kids can create their own sandwich masterpieces.

You can also do sweet sandwich treats as well like peanut butter and bananas or pie filling like apple and cherry with a sprinkle of sugar sandwiched between two pieces of bread and cooked in a sandwich maker is a very tasty sweet treat! Let the kids be creative and you can have a lot of fun tasting each other's creations!