Project 50: Bread!

Our second child officially started being home educated this week, and so the title of the blog has been changed appropriately from Educating Solomon to Educating Solomon and Monica, and we gave Monica the first choice of project. She chose Bread.

Bread is a topic that we have been planning to do since our visit to Lincoln Castle almost a year ago (Project 3: Medieval Castles). The nearby Ellis Mill in Lincoln is one of the few working mills that is easily accessible to us by train, but while we have waited and waited for it to open up again, it has been resolutely closed for maintenance. Therefore the week has mostly been focused on watching videos about the bread making process, making our own bread, and seeing what the local supermarket had to offer.

The bread machine was turned off for the week, and the children were introduced to the idea of kneading the bread by hand. First for a regular white loaf:

Handmade white

And then for some wholemeal rolls, although unfortunately the rolls didn't turn out very well, as the grease proof paper stuck to the bottom!

Wholemeal rolls with added paper

We learnt our lesson for the final bake of the week, and returned to the Bacofoil non-stick dimpled paper as we attempted to make some stottie cake (a type of bread from the North East - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stottie_cake).

Stottie cakes

We also bought a selection of breads from the local supermarket, so the children could try a few they don't usually eat.

A selection of supermarket breads

Unsurprisingly they were keener on the hot cross buns that the German rye bread.

Monica enjoyed her first week of home education, but she also managed to break the kitchen mixer tap whilst making the stottie cakes, so she may be going into mainstream education sooner than she thinks!

Next week's project: Pond life.