"Chocolate Cake Festival"

Fourteen-year-old Brooke Kuzniewicz, an 8th-grader at Crone Middle School, will present a cooking demo 12:45 p.m. Saturday during "Kids in the Kitchen" at the 8th Annual . Brooke will help children assemble their own dessert. | Photo by Cheryl S. McCarthy

To assemble dessert, you will need:

1 chocolate cake, made from a boxed mix and baked in 9-by-13 pan

Chocolate pudding, made from two boxes instant pudding

2 8-ounce tubs Cool Whip

2 8-ounce bags Heath toffee bits

Simple mocha syrup

While cake is baking, make syrup: In saucepan, heat 1 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar over medium-low until sugar dissolves. Do not boil. Remove from heat. Add 1/2 teaspoon espresso instant coffee powder.

When cake is baked, use a chopstick or skewer to poke holes all over it. Pour 1/2 cup of the syrup over warm cake. When cake is cool, cut into 1-inch squares.

To assemble: In a clear deep glass bowl or dish, pack in the first layer of cake squares. Follow with a layer of chocolate pudding, then Cool Whip, then a generous layer of toffee bits. Repeat layers as size of bowl allows, ending with toffee bits. Serve.

(To make an adult version, use Kahlua liqueur instead of simple syrup, homemade pudding, and fresh real whipped cream.)

Adapted from Shannon Drost

Fourteen-year-old Brooke Kuzniewicz has been cooking as long as she can remember. On Saturday at the eighth annual Chocolate Festival, she’ll teach other kids about cooking, too.

Brooke is one of six cooking instructors who will present a half-hour demonstration in the Kids in the Kitchen part of the day-long fundraiser, which features entertainment, cooking demos for children and adults, celebrity cooks, chocolate vendors, and a chocolate baking competition put on by NCO Youth & Family Services at the Neuqua Valley High School freshman building,

Brooke, with family friend Shannon Drost, will help 15 to 20 children make their own version of Shannon’s “Death by Chocolate” dessert, a yummy concoction of chocolate cake, mocha syrup, chocolate pudding, whipped cream and toffee bits.

During Brooke’s demo, each child gets a kit containing the components needed to make his or her small version of the dessert.

“At the end, the children will have a treat to eat, they’ll have learned how to make it, and they’ll have the recipe to take home to make with mom or dad,” Shannon says. Shannon and Brooke created the dessert by adapting a recipe Shannon used with her own children.

“It’s minimal cooking, lots of fun and lots of hands-on experience,” Shannon says. “It’s easy for kids to pull together.”

Brooke, daughter of Shari and Frank Kuzniewicz, owners of Pancake Café at Rickert Drive and 75th Street, grew up working in the family restaurant with siblings Frankie, 18, and Katlyn, 20. “They were born into it,” father Frank says. The kids would play in a back room, noting on the security cameras when the kitchen was quiet, and pop their heads out to ask the cooks for pancakes.

It wasn’t long before they were cooking, too. Brooke measured her growth against the work counter. “She knew as soon as she could reach the plates, she could stay and help,” Frank says.

Now Brooke’s favorite thing to make is the restaurant’s chocolate chip pancakes. Brother Frankie, a culinary arts student at College of DuPage, makes cinnamon rolls, banana bread and biscuits with gravy. Their grandmothers and aunt work there, too.

The extended family helped build the restaurant 17 years ago. When they opened, Frank remembers, Rickert Drive was a dirt road.

“I like to make anything, as long as I’m in the kitchen,” Brooke says. “I want to work at the restaurant as long as I can.”

Cheryl S. McCarthy writes on food and cooking regularly for the Sun.