The children had a lovely surprise on Friday and they got to make two batches of brown bread from scratch! We started by measuring out the wholemeal flour, 250g, and the plain white flour, 200g. Then in pairs the children put the flour into the bowl and used a sieve for the plain flour and afterwards they added baking powder and a teaspoon of salt. The children then used their hands to mix the dry ingredients and then we added buttermilk. Before we added the buttermilk, we smelt it. The children said it smelt like yoghurt, flowers, cream and even a farm!
The baking soda helps the bread to rise and the children where shown how it works by adding white wine vinegar to the baking soda. It made fizzy sounds and got bigger.
Next we prepared an egg, 350ml of milk and some honey and put them into a bowl and mixed it together. Two children helped grease our tins by rubbing butter on the bottom and sides of the tin.
We then mixed the wet and dry ingredients together. It was very hard mixing it and it got dry at the bottom so we added a little more buttermilk. We mixed, and mixed and mixed it all again, and then we put it into the baking tin and flattened it down. This was very hard work! Finally we put it into the oven to bake it for 50 minutes.
Wheat was one of the first crops grown in Ireland and we looked at artists paintings showing farmers tending to their wheat. Then we got to see real wheat and it's seeds. We used our senses to describe the wheat, including tasting it. Finally we seen how the seeds were ground down into flour. We all got a turn at grounding the wheat into flour using different methods.
The children had an amazing hands on experience and thoroughly enjoyed the day. One of the highlights was tasting the bread they all made!
