Whole Wheat Bread Baking

Some Signs of Spring in Our Yard

We are lucky enough to knead bread and bake it every week at school in our parent/child class. Hazel has been asking if we can make huckabuck bread at home as well. We did last year around this time. The teachers have been kind enough to share the recipe with us. This week however I decided instead of huckabuck bread we would make whole wheat bread to go with the soup we will be making in a bit for dinner.

So first we looked for a good recipe. After checking a couple of cookbooks I decided on one from my Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book (I have the 10th edition). I adapted the recipe a bit, of course.

Ingredients:
2 cups bread flour
1 package active dry yeast
1/3 cup of honey (not sure I used a 1/3 of a cup since I used whatever I had left)
3 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups water
3 cups whole wheat flour

Combine the bread flour and yeast in a bowl. Hazel did this step.

Heat and stir the honey, butter, water and salt until warm (120 to 130 degrees) and butter almost melts. (I did this since it involved the stove.)
 Add to the flour mixture. Stir with spoon (the recipe called for a mixer but that takes some of the fun away).

Add 2 cups whole wheat flour and mix as best you can. I eventually used my hands. Then add 1 to 1 1/2 cups more flour ( I used whole wheat the recipe called for white) until the consistency is what you want.

Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead. At school we sing songs and say rhymes while kneading. We sang one:

Chorus: It's down with your heals and up with your hands.

This is the way you make huckabuck bread.

My mother and father have just gone to bed.

They left me alone to make huckabuck bread.

Chorus

My sister and brother have just gone to bed.

They left me alone to make huckabuck bread.

Chorus

My kitty and doggy have just gone to bed.

They left me alone to make huckabuck bread.

Chorus

Hazel demonstrated how she likes to knead at school by poking holes and breaking off pieces.

She also made a walking fairy house that had a bunny tail. See above. She is moving it so it is walking.

Then we combined both halves back to one ball and placed in a lightly oiled pan cover with a towel and place in a warm draft free space for an hour to an hour and a half. Sorry I didn't take pictures. I had warmed my oven slightly and used it for the rising space. I also was too excited to show Hazel how the dough doubled and get to punch it down to remember the camera. Punching it down is my favorite part. We split it and kneaded a bit more. Then cover them with the towel and let them sit for 10 minutes. Then shape into loaves and put into lightly oiled loaf pans. 

Let it rise again for 45-60 minutes until it has almost doubled.

Then bake at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes. The instructions said something about covering the last 10-20 minutes if necessary. I didn't see a reason to.

Then cool a bit and enjoy!! Hazel and I sampled it while it was still warm, but there is plenty left to go with our soup tonight. Now we have to go make that.

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I especially link up baking with Hazel at:

The Conductor--Book and Craft

Recently we got out of the library a book called The Conductor by Laetitia Dervenay. It is a wordless book that combines an orchestra conductor and a grove of trees and lots of magic. The conductor climbs to the top of the tree and begins to conduct. Soon the leaves begin to swirl and then take flight looking like birds. After the conductor finishes, bows and climbs down the leaves return to their place and the trees are no longer bare, but full again. It is a fun book. We made the leaf birds as we call them. Some of which looked like this but in black and white in the book.

I cut out the body of the bird from black paper (well I used black with gold sparkle) and some leaves from green and brown paper and gave them a slight fringe edge. Then gave Hazel a glue stick. She came up with this:

I cut out another and glued it myself. This time I made the leaves a bit smaller, so you could see more of the shapes we were using. The picture at the top of this post is mine.

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Easter/Spring Fingerprint Pictures and Cards

Today Hazel and I made some thumbprint pictures. I had three of these small frames I bought ages ago and framed three of mine. I have seen them all over the place, but used Amy's at One Artsy Mama for inspiration. I also added a pom pom to one of the bunnies to be the back side. Hazel had fun making fingerprints and adding to them, but didn't quite get the idea of a picture from them. We made hers into cards and included one of mine on each.

Card for Aunt Beth and Ian

Card for Mimi and Pop

Card for Nonni

Nonni got multiple pictures (five total) of Hazel's. Aunt Amy's card got lots of stickers and one of my fingerprint pictures since Hazel got distracted by the scallop edge scissors and cut the rest of the paper instead of making more fingerprint pictures.

We will share more Easter projects soon!! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!! Sharing Saturday will start tonight and I will be co-hosting a new style link party on Tuesday so come check it out!!

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More Duck & Swan Crafts and a Gift

Well, we are at home with the fever that is going around. So we are doing some more crafts and resting. Today we finished up some duck and swan crafts we started yesterday and then Hazel did some painting. You may remember yesterday we discussed ducks and swans near us for spring. We talked about some of our favorite books about ducks and swans and shared a couple of crafts with paper plates. Today we did some pine cone swans and ducks. The idea came from Family Fun. I made a few changes. We used construction paper for the beaks since I didn't want to deal with breaking toothpicks.

Hazel's Ducks

Hazel got a bit bored with the details and didn't get her completely finished (no eyes or beaks) and she wouldn't let me help with the duckling so it didn't get done. We obviously changed the colors of the pipe cleaners and feathers to represent that they are ducks and not swans.

My Mallard Family

 Next we painted some egg cartons to make Easter egg holders into swans. The idea also came from Family Fun. They called them swans, but I think they look more like ducks. The white one I used a higher egg carton (it was higher in the middle bumps) so the swan neck would be longer. I threw in some plastic eggs we had sitting around from our decorating to show how they will look completed. Hazel helped paint them yesterday, but I finished them today with the eyes, beaks and feathers.

Yesterday, Hazel received a lovely package from Master D, her penpal in Australia. Master D is Kelly's son over at Happy Whimsical Hearts. Kelly makes the most beautiful wooden toys for her kids and we were lucky enough to receive a beautiful fairy door that she made (as well as some other goodies). Right away Hazel wanted to play with it. She first asked what it was. Then asked if the door could open so the fairy could get out of the house. Then I explained that it represented a fairy house and pulled out the flower fairies I made for her and we set up a house for them. She loved it.

We also took out the beautiful gnome that Master D sent Hazel for Christmas out to come to the fairy party. We decided we need a few more seats for the fairies though. And two took a nap.

Hazel absolutely loved it!! Thank you Master D and Kelly!! It gave us something to play with while Hazel is resting!!

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Spring Time Visitors

Lately we have been noticing some new spring visitors around. The first one we have been seeing we named Tom. He is a swan. He seems to live on the reservoir near our house. Unfortunately we only see him when we are in the car and cannot get close enough to the water safely to get a picture of him. (There is no sidewalk on the water side of the street and it is a busy street.) I am pretty sure Tom is a mute swan. Here is a picture I found on line of a mute swan.

Source: http://www.wildanimalsonline.com/birds/muteswan.php

Our other visitors showed up this morning. I believe they are the same Mr. and Mrs. Mallard that we fed last spring. They live at the pond at one end of the brook that goes around our back yard. The pond is at the other end of our street. At least that is where I have seen them recently. My guess is they have a nest somewhere along the brook since last spring Mr. Mallard came by himself later in the spring.

Needless to say Hazel loves having the ducks come visit our house and we run out and feed them. Afterall her best friend is a duck.

When we started noticing Tom, Hazel began asking questions about what swans eat. I had to do a little research. I googled it but also we went to the library to find some books about swans. The first is a non-fiction book, Swans by Lynn M. Stone. It is a little above Hazel's age level, but she definitely got some good information from it, and I learned a lot more about swans. It is a chapter book with five chapters and lots of pictures.

The next one we got is Little Swan by Jonathan London. This is a picture book that follows a young cygnet from hatching to migrating the first time with details about eating, swimming, etc. This is more age appropriate for Hazel. It is about trumpeter swans, but is general enough for information about most swans in North America.

With our visitors this morning we also pulled out our favorite duck themed books. The first being a classic from this area, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. This book takes place in Boston and tell the story of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard looking for the best place for their nest and then having the eggs hatch and the ducklings, etc. and making their home in the Public Garden in downtown Boston. To show how much this book means to Boston, there are statues of the Make Way for Duckling Ducks in the Public Garden.

Source: http://www.freefoto.com/preview/1211-06-10/Make-Way-for-Ducklings-Sculpture--Boston-Public-Garden--Boston--Massachusetts

And of course we pulled out the classic, Ugly Duckling, which of course combines both types of visitors for us.

Well Hazel has a bit of a fever today. When I spoke to the nurse at her pediatrician's office she said there are many viruses going around with just a fever and no other symptoms, so it looks as though Hazel caught one. So we are having a day of rest even though it is beautiful outside. Ugh!!

Our First Version of Tom the Swan

Well this morning we did some crafts. We started with some paper plate crafts. All you need for any of these is a paper plate, paint, feathers, glue and construction paper and googly eyes. We made a swan and a mallard couple.

Hazel decorated both sides of Mrs. Mallard.

That is what we have been up to. More duck and swan crafts to come. Hope you are having a great day!

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