Need new ideas to teach cooking and baking to kids? Kids book author, Deanna Cook, has some fun cookbooks that can help!
The cookbooks are targeted to various age groups. They have leader planning tips, promotional materials, lesson plans, easy and fun recipes, gift tags, stickers, bake sale signs, and many other fun ideas.
Learn more about these books and the author at www.deannafcook.com.
To save time during the holidays, or any time of year, prepare yeast dough ahead of time and freeze into dough balls for rolls to bake later. The trick is using a dough with extra yeast because slow freezing can damage yeast.
According to Fleischmann’s Yeast, it is best to use dough recipes developed for freezing. These recipes are high in yeast and sugar and low in salt. It is recommended to use bread flour to help maintain bread structure. After preparing and kneading the dough, shape into rolls or flatten into a disk and wrap airtight. The dough can be frozen up to four weeks. When ready to use, thaw at room temperature or slowly in the refrigerator. Once thawed, shape, let rise, and bake as directed.
Some examples of freezer dough recipes include:
http://www.breadworld.com/recipes/Freezer-Pizza-Dough
http://www.breadworld.com/recipes/Master-Bread-Dough
Other tips for prepping dough ahead for later use can be found at http://redstaryeast.com/yeast-baking-lessons/postpone-baking/
These two large words can be scary to read. But the common word for these words is yeast, a sugar-eating fungus.
Yeast is a single-celled fungi used to leaven bread. To grow, yeast digests its favorite food, sugar, in its various forms, granulated or brown sugar (sucrose); honey, molasses, maple syrup, fruit (fructose and glucose); and maltose in flour. As the yeast digests the sugar, it ferments to produce carbon dioxide (gas) and ethyl alcohol. The gas is trapped in the stretchy dough network and expands. The ethyl alcohol gives flavor and aroma to the bread.
Learn more about yeast and how it is used at:
www.breadworld.com/education/Yeast-Basics
http://redstaryeast.com/science-yeast/
www.homebaking.org/foreducators/yeast_science-1.html
Raw sugar is a trendy sweetener found in many specialty food stores. Examples include Demerara and turbinado sugar. They have a light molasses flavor and a larger crystal size. Can they be used in place of traditional granulated sugar in baked goods?
For wetter batters, such as cake batter, the moisture in the recipe can help dissolve the raw sugar to produce a good cake texture. For a dryer batter or dough, such as muffins, cookies and shortbread, the finished texture is poor. The low amount of moisture will not completely dissolve the large sugar crystals.
To use raw sugar in baked goods, grind the sugar until fine and powdery before adding to batters. This will help the sugar dissolve and improve results.
Source: Cook’s Illustrated, September 2017
The Home Baking Association, in cooperation with the Kansas State Department of Education Child Nutrition & Wellness division, has just released “A Baker’s Dozen Smart Snack Baking Recipes.”
The recipes are in compliance with Smart Snacks in School Standards.
There are 14 recipes and are available in two quantity cooking sizes, up to 50 servings. These recipes meet guidelines for foods sold in schools.
Learn more at www.homebaking.org/PDF/smart_snacks_bakersdozen.pdf
I’ve always said baking bread is therapy for me. Now there’s some science to back that up. The study from New Zealand followed 658 young people in a 13 day study.
Some outcomes of the study showed that baking helps them focus on small tasks that are similar to meditation. This led to more enthusiasm and higher flourishing days. This just reinforces the idea that creativity is a positive experience for better well-being.
So enjoy that good feeling of taking freshly baked bread out of the oven!
Sources: http://bit.ly/2gYgd9N
http://bit.ly/2hAVOVx