We went on a wonderful field trip this morning. Our local bakery does a terrific tour for the kiddos. They read a story, Little Red Hen of course. Then they got to see how the bakery grinds their own flour, the huge mixing bowls used for kneading the dough, the large rotating oven and the noisy loaf slicer. The kids were all given a ball of dough to knead themselves and the baker demonstrated how they form their Easter bunny loaves. After that we ate our fill of tons of samples. Yumm! It was a big hit. We were also sent home with seeds to sprout our own wheat. If we take the sprouted wheat back to the bakery we get a free loaf of bread… how cool is that!
Umm… baking day! This is quickly becoming our favorite day around here. It is laid back and quiet. Everyone has some time to do their own thing in the morning (I can actually get some laundry done) with me calling the troops into the kitchen every so often to help. Yummy smells and yummy treats.
To go along with our Week Two activities we made our own butter. Of course we started by getting a loaf of bread going in the bread machine (ohhh do we love our bread machine). Then it was an epic battle of man vs machine. We poured a little bit of heavy whipping cream into a mason jar, the rest went into the mixer bowl with a bit of salt. And they were off. Guess who won? The boy! I was actually amazed at how he never tired of shaking that jar (just shows the boundless energy of a 5 year old boy).
For those of you who try this, you know you have butter when the cream transforms first to thick whipping cream (forms peaks) and then to what I can best describe as scrambled eggs in milk. It will totally pull away from the sides forming solid clumps in the middle, in a pool of buttermilk.
After I strained the butter I couldn’t bring myself to just throw away the buttermilk so instead I googled ‘Buttermilk Recipes.” I found one for ButterMilk Sugar Cookies that I highly recommend. We didn’t make the glaze but the cookies were very yummy with a more cake like texture.