Making Homemade Bread with Children

My children love to eat bread very much, they would eat at least 2 slices in a day! But to them, bread is something that is available from the supermarket or the bakery. When I said that we could make bread at home, they did not believe me.

Over last weekend, we made our first homemade bread! There are a few things that the children can learn through bread making.  

Art

They can unleash their creativity as they shape the dough. 

Science

Observe the yeast in action! Even though they have seen the process of proofing when we made our homemade pizza, they were still very excited when they observed that the dough increase in size over time.

Character Education

As the process from making to enjoying the bread takes 2+ hours, I hope that they would learn to be patient. It also takes some hard work to knead the dough since we do not have a mixer, so I hope they would learn that food does not come about easily and we should not to take things for granted.

The children felt tired after kneading the dough for a while, so I had a good opportunity to exercise my muscles. 

After the first proofing, the fun began. See the funny shapes that we made!

Isn't this a good painting exercise?

Finally, we get to enjoy our fruits of labour!

Ingredients:

• 250 grams bread flour
• 25 grams plain flour
• 40 grams sugar
• 3 teaspoons instant dry yeast
• 0.5 teaspoons salt
• 100 ml warm water
• 80 ml warm milk
• 2 tablespoons canola oil (can use other vegetable oil except peanut oil, unless you like the peanut taste)
• 1 egg yolk + 2 teaspoons water for egg wash

Method:

1. Add yeast to water, leave it for 5 minutes.
2. Sift bread flour and plain flour into a mixing bowl. Add the yeast mixture from Step 1, sugar, salt and milk. When the ingredients are mixed, add canola oil. 
3. Knead for 10 minutes on a clean surface or inside the big mixing bowl.
4. Make the dough into a ball. Grease the mixing bowl with some canola oil and on top of the dough. Cover the mixing bowl with cling wrap and let the dough proof for 1 hour.
5. Divide the dough into a few portions, roll into smaller balls, shape the dough.
6. Put the dough on the baking tray that is lined with baking paper. Leave for 15 minutes. 
7. Preheat oven at 170 degrees Celsius.
8. Brush the egg yolk + water.
9. Bake for 20 minutes.

Tips:

• When kneading the dough, slam it on the surface, then fold it, and then push as if you are washing clothes on washing board.

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