BUENA PARK : 15 Kid Chefs Lick Desserts Into Shape

Forget using a spoon or even fingers.

Twelve-year-old Robert Spragg dunked his face--from his chin to his forehead--into the bowl of dessert, smothering in a gooey mess of chocolate syrup, strawberry mousse and whipped cream.

“It feels like I have 10 pounds of ice cream on me,” he said with a giggle.

Jeremy Smith’s face was also covered in a chocolaty concoction that undoubtedly a sweet tooth would have savored.

“I like smearing it in my face--just to be funny,” said Jeremy, 13, whose hands were also covered with the dessert. Sticky remnants were running down his plastic apron.

“It feels cold and mushy,” he said.

Fifteen youths from the Boys & Girls Club of Buena Park were invited Thursday to the Olive Garden to create their own versions of the restaurant’s dessert, Brownie Banana Funtastico.

Wearing plastic caps on their heads and plastic aprons, the youths joined in the fun at the Buena Park Italian restaurant to prepare the tasty treats with ingredients that included bananas, brownies, whipped cream, strawberry mousse, chocolate syrup and cherries.

Then the kid chefs were supposed to eat their concoctions with their fingers--but most used only their mouths.

“Can we have a water hose?” mused Ruben Alvarez, the Boys & Girls Club program director, who directed the young people into the restroom to clean up after their mess.

“It’s great summer fun,” Alvarez said. “It’s a positive activity that we like the kids to be doing during the summer.”

While the dessert sweetened some children’s taste buds as they licked their bowls clean, others weren’t too crazy about the sweet mixture.

“I didn’t like the whipped cream,” said Ontwanet Moran, 12. But she said she liked eating it and making a mess “because you can’t do this at home.”

With his bowl of dessert melted in front of him, 10-year-old Danny Gray said: “I didn’t eat it all. I didn’t like it. It tastes weird.”

Danny said he liked the cheese pizza he ate better.