Kitchen Chemistry - Brilliant Bread

As a 'grande finale' to our Kitchen Chemistry Unit for science we had a day in the Food Technology room putting into practice all that we had learnt by creating kitchen masterpieces.

We began by splitting into 5 groups (each with a parent help or two) and started off by following the recipe for a different type of bread each.

Rylee, Georgia, Lucy and Samantha made Foccacia bread, with the help of Tavi and Stacey.

FOCCACIA RECIPE
Water 430ml
Olive Oil 5.5 Tblsp
Salt 2.5 tsp
White Flour 720g
Yeast 2.5 tsp

Place the ingredients inside the bread pan in the order of the list. Push the menu to the dough function and set it going. It usually takes about 1 hr 30 mins to make the dough.

Handshaping
1. Press the dough on a lightly floured surface with a pastry roll.
2. Make an incision on the top of the dough
3. Stand in a warm area for 20 minutes
4. Baste the bread with olive oil and dried rosemary.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degrees C for 25 minutes
6. Leave the Foccacia on a rack to cool down.

Jessica, Chaleece, Emma and Alex made Raisin bread, with the help of Jess' mum Maria.

RAISIN BREAD RECIPE
3 tsp Yeast
2 Tblsp milk powder
3 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
320ml water
1 tsp sugar
2 Tblsp butter
* 1 cup rasins (sultanas)* Add after raisin beep (usually after 30 minutes or so)

Izack, Adam and Elliot made bread rolls, with the help of 'kitchen super-Nana', Barbara.

BREAD ROLLS RECIPE
Dough:
Water 250ml
Sugar 1/4 cup
Egg 1x 60g
Margarine 2 tablespoons
Plain Flour 520g (3 and 1/4 cups)
Salt 1/2 teaspoon
Yeast 2 and 1/2 teaspoons
Topping
Margarine, melted.
1. Remove completed dough from bread pan. Line a baking tray with paper. Heat oven to 180 degrees C
2. Divide dough into 15 pieces and shape each piece into a ball. Place on the baking tray, cover and allow to rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.3. Brush with margarine. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Mac, Josh, Blaize and Fraser made white bread (with yeast), helped by Dallas, Leigh and Mia.

Unfortunately we had a bit of a disaster with this bread as Mrs O had given this group her recipe for white bread but the breadmaker they were using had a smaller tin and the ingredients ended up spilling over the edge of the pan onto the element, which resulted in smoke coming from the breadmaker! We had to turn the breadmaker off, empty out the ingredients that were left and attempted to bake it in the oven. It was not a great success, so we will have another go at this recipe in class next week.

William, Jaxon and Regen made white bread (with no yeast), with the help of William's mum Wendy.

There was plenty of this bread left over at the end - those who tried it found it to be very heavy, stodgy, hard and not very nice tasting. This was interesting as the only ingredient that was left out was the yeast. This proved to us just what a great job the yeast does in making the bread rise, to make it light and tasty to eat.

Everyone really enjoyed trying all of the delicious breads. The favourites of the day were the dough buns, which were lovely and sweet and the raisin bread (which tasted just like Hot Cross buns - "MMMMmmmm, delicious!!!).