Baking with my granddaughter
Yesterday we were looking after three of four grandchildren because my daughter and son in law and the oldest grandson were involved in "International Water Count" of birds which always takes place mid January practically worldwide.
I decided to involve my eleven and half year old granddaughter into baking and she was also very keen on baking. She is an incredible girl playing trumpet and riding horses. We made two loaves of bread and three baguettes. The boules were baked in wood fired oven while baguettes were baked in electric steam oven.
Recently my neighbor asked me to prepare two big boules for their party and gave me a mixture of five grains flour: wheat 50%, spelt 20%, rye type 1250 12%, barley 10% and durum 8%. I found that this mixture gives a prefect bread when you add 50% of AP flour, so in the final dough the flour mixture is:
| whole grain wheat | 25% |
| whole grain spelt | 10% |
| rye type 1250 | 6% |
| whole grain barley | 5% |
| durum | 4% |
| AP flour | 50% |
The dough had 78% hydration with 15% of @100% hydration starter (AP flour only).
The dough for baguettes had 20% of preferment (poolish 16 hours old), 15% whole grain spelt, 5% whole grain rye and rest AP flour and about 2g of fresh yeast. we prepared the dough in the Bosch Universal mixer. The hydration was only 63% because I din't want that my granddaughter would have problems with sticky dough.
Shaping baguette
Shaping baguette
Finished baguette
My plan was to involve my granddaughter in the whole process from dough preparation to baking and also baguettes shaping and scoring.
She was mixing the dough and did most of S&F and preshaped her boule. Before every phase I showed her how to do it and she got it right away. So with a little bit of additional coaching she was able to shape and score baguettes.I showed her the signs of dough at the end of BF phase and she learned also how to shape a boule.
Scoring the boule
Final result - the boule she scored for the first time in her life with serrated knife
The crumb shot
We baked blueberry muffins for the dessert.
I must admit that this was an awesome experience for me and her. She was so proud and happy to get so nice results. Her boule was slightly elliptical due to my fault when loading the boule into WFO. Can you imagine something better than this kind of adventure for a gradfather? I think not. I was the proudest and happiest grandpa on the world yesterday!
Happy baking, Joze
Comments
Wow!! Everything looks great. She did so well with the scoring and the shaping. Its looks miles better than my first loaf :)
I'm sure you had a lot of fun together.
Thanks for sharing such a great post.
Happy baking Joze!
Thanks Ru for your nice comment! She really did a great job and she was able to repeat whatever I have showed her extremely well already for the first time. And this was her first real bake!
Happy baking,
Joze
You just might have a permanent apprentice there after such success with her first experience with baking bread! Tell her that we think she did an amazing job!
I am sure she will read your post because I sent her mother the link to this post. I would love to have her in my kitchen every day but she has to learn for school. Yesterday was just u unique opportunity to introduce her to baking and according to the results I expect she will be happy to repeat that.
Happy Baking Danni!
Joze
We see a lot of potential from her. A star baker in the future for sure. It's not only fun at the moment but will be treasured memories for both of you.
She id definitely very gifted besides the fact that she is excellent in school. I expect that she will start baking soon at home because I have built a wood fired oven in their backyard. Now she needs just to decide to start baking. Actually I don't expect that this will happen before the summer school vacations.
Just for fun I posted two pictures of the WFO in their backyard which I took yesterday morning. We have now a lot of snow and temperatures well below freezing level. More snow to come in a week.
Happy baking Pal,
Joze
A gorgeous girl helping you bake and you training her in a wonderful skill. What could be better?
Oh and the breads look delicious. Lucky you! Lucky her!
hester
Yes, I completely agree with you, both of us were/are really happy!
Happy baking!
Joze
... to bake with my grandson. He's only six weeks old at the moment and a little small for it though. :)
I baked bread with my grandmother when I was little, and it's one of my fondest memories!
and soon you will be able to include him in your kitchen and baking. Kids like to do new stuff but for a short time and one has to be careful with keeping the balance.
I had never opportunity to bake with my grandmothers because they died when I was very young. But later on when I was on vacations I was attending the old style baking in wood fire oven and I remember this still now. Therefore I want that my grandchildren remember me for the great moments we had together.
Happy baking Lazy Loafer!
Joze
what an awesome day. lucky you to bake with your lovely granddaughter. She has a talent for sure, the breads look lovely. love the photos, snow and all.
Happy baking Joze
Leslie
for your nice comment. I wish that everybody would be able to experience that either as a parenmt or grand parent.
Happy baking Leslie,
Joze
yard my daughter would have been begging for and making pizza every day! It was fun teaching her how to do slap and folds and she never forgot them. It is fun to have her take over in the bread baking process to this day. It is something we will always share. Her early years were spent learning how to cook and she is now quite accomplished and her fiance grateful:-) You are so blessed to have a such a beautiful, smart and talented grand daughter to share your baking skills! She will not forget you or them long after we all are gone! The circle of life has no end for good reason. Well done all the way around and
Happy baking - you made my day!
Years ago when my daughter and son in law bought the house where they live now I offered them to build a WFO and they agreed. Unfortunately with four children there is not enough time to fully utilize it during working days and children are really occupied with the school obligations and also free-time activities. So weekends and summer vacations are more appropriate for the WFO usage.
I agree with you that we remember people for nice things we did together and I have a lot of such memories from my youth. I wish I could return back to those times to pay more attention and learn more. I am really thankful for all those great persons who made me happy at that time.
Happy baking Dab,
Joze