Summer Fun Day 10 - Teen Boredom Buster - Brownie Bake-Off

The thing with parenting is just about the time you become an expert at dealing with preschoolers, you realize you've got teenagers in the house.  It's amazing how quickly that happens.

For the most part teenagers are pretty good at keeping themselves occupied. Though if yours are anything like mine, most of their downtime activities involve plugging in, and zoning out.  Every once and a while it's a good idea to have a few items in your boredom buster arsenal to draw them out of their rooms, and get them interacting together in the real world.

Last night after dinner, for instance, we held a brownie bake off.  All it took on my part was the purchase of three different brands of the same kind of brownie mix (fudge brownies in this case), and a few minutes to set the table with mixing bowls, cups and spoons, pre-greased baking pans, and the add in ingredients (eggs, water, and oil) for each of my teens.  They took it from there, and had a lot more fun than even I had hoped with mixing...

...comparing...

...preparing...

...baking...

...and even cleaning up...

...before setting up a taste test...

...for their younger siblings (and no, I didn't let them eat three whole brownies each - they only "sampled" each piece).

They even gave a "formal" presentation of their findings.

I won't give away their results, as I'm sure they vary depending on the taste of an individual or family. But I will say, there really was a difference between the brands in chewiness, thickness, consistency, and flavor.  And naturally, the one we liked the best...

...had the most calories.

It's great to be a homeschooler.