Homemade Bread
The aroma of fresh baked bread fills the air, and eight preschoolers who just had a really fun morning are waking up from nap, excited to take their own tiny loaf of bread home with them, and to show their mom and dad what they did today…
I can’t talk about homemade bread without talking about “Grandma Bente (Benta)”, as the kids call her! My mom has baked her own bread each week for more than 40 years. Personally, we buy our bread at the store most of the time, just for convenience, but I love to make it for my family when I can, and a few times a year, I like my preschoolers to get to experience bread making as an activity, too. Grandma Bente comes over to help one morning each week, just for fun, so we always schedule bread making on a day when our “expert” will be here, and we always arrange for the kids to participate as much as possible.
Do you bake bread for your family, or with children in your care? What tips would you share with others? Here are some photos of some of our bread baking adventures, and a few tips based on our experiences baking with eight preschoolers.
Tips:
Two Adults
Your Recipe
Links
A practice Run
Minimize Waiting
Adding the Ingredients
Kneading the Dough
Shaping the Dough
Baking
Cleanup
Packaging
Two Adults: “Two adults” is a beautiful thing. One person to lead the activity, and one to take a few photos of the activity to share with families; or to assist any children who need to step away for a moment for the potty or something like that. It’s also great during cleanup. One person can tidy up after the activity while the other serves lunch or leads another activity, and then it can work nicely to bake the bread and package it up for each child while the kids take a little nap.
Your Recipe: Use one that you are excited about. We have a white bread recipe we like, hand written in a cookbook I’ve had since I was nine, there is a good Honey-Wheat recipe on the Allrecipes website, a delicious, faintly sweet, wheat recipe on the Taste of Home website that uses a tiny bit of molasses, and there is a delicious Raisin-Cinnamon bread I found in a Southern Living cookbook. I will share some links for you.
Links:
Honey Wheat Bread II: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/6763/honey-wheat-bread-i/?internalSource=hub%20recipe&referringContentType=Search
Whole Wheat Bread: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/whole-wheat-bread/
Homemade Raisin Bread/Cinnamon-Raisin Bread, “Southern Living Cookbook, 30 years of Our Best
Recipes: Homemade White Bread – here is a photo of a recipe we always used when I was growing up – written so nicely (kidding!) by my 9-year-old self!
A Practice Run: If you’ve never made bread before, a practice run first, without children is a good plan. It’s great to be able to watch a how-to video, or to read user comments after the recipes on the websites without asking little kiddos to wait for you while you figure out a step.
Minimize Waiting: Our living room, eating area and kitchen is all one room. We like to have the bread making activity going at the kitchen table, and some backup choices available a few feet away in the living room. If a child stops enjoying the table activity for some reason, they can do something else they like nearby and do any observing they might like to do from a few feet away.
Adding the Ingredients: We go around the table and let the kids each have a turn or two adding ingredients. If we know we are going to run out of ingredients to add, and that someone will be sad they didn’t get a turn, we strategically prevent that by arranging for one cup of flour, for example, to be divided into two ½ cups so everyone can have an even number of turns.
Kneading the Dough: We received an awesome KitchenAid high power mixer as a gift one year, and it can “knead” the bread for me if I am making bread alone. If we are using bread making as an activity for the kids, we often use a giant mixing bowl instead, and do it all by hand. Everyone washes and sanitizes their hands first, and then when the kids knead the dough, they can do it through a layer of Saran Wrap, so they aren’t actually touching the dough, or they can each have their own tiny ball of dough to handle. We can keep track of it through the whole process and bake it as a dinner roll on a piece of foil with their name on it; or, if we think a child’s hands haven’t stayed clean and their little ball of bread dough has gotten a little… hmmn, which word to use… (compromised? Ha-ha!) we don’t bake it at all. The money spent on that child’s small portion of ingredients, that won’t be baked and eaten, can be viewed as pennies spent on a learning experience rather than as money spent on wasted food, and we can give them a new ball of dough to use instead.
Shape the Dough: The kids can each shape a tiny ball of dough into a dinner roll if you like. The dough can be placed on a cookie sheet lined with squares of aluminum foil, rise, and be baked. Remember your nonstick spray! Black Sharpie marker works well for writing names on the foil. Just be sure to write the child’s name in a place far enough away from the dough that it won’t expand to reach it. Kids can shape their own ball of dough while an adult shapes the majority of the recipe into the desired number of loaves.
Baking: If possible, we like to time things so the loaves of bread are baked after lunch and before snack. The kids get to eat some of their bread along with snack, and they get to take some home, too, that we are able to package up nicely while they sleep.
Cleanup: The adults will end up doing the bulk of the cleanup. It can give the kids a sense of pride, though, if they can “help” for a moment before they go play. Sometimes it works nicely to let the kids use a paper towel or washcloth to clean the chair that they sat on, or to wash their “spot” at the table. It can also be fun to use a fresh batch of clean dish soap bubbles (just skim the brand-new bubbles off the top of the fresh water in the sink) on the table and let the kids “help” move the bubbles around with their hands, with a washcloth, or with a paper towel.
Packaging: I like to let the bread cool a bit, and then package everything up and put the kids’ names on each package while the kids are napping. We love those tiny aluminum loaf pans, and sometimes I send the whole pan home, or sometimes we take the bread loaf out first and wrap it in in aluminum foil. When my kiddos are leaving to go home with their families, they are usually pretty excited about showing their bread to their mom and dad, and sometimes they passionately want to be the one to carry it to the car. With that in mind, I wrap the whole thing really well so if they drop it on the way to the car, or if they drop it on their car floor, it won’t accidentally come out of the packaging and be ruined.