Bread dough that's so good, I'd serve it at a dinner party

...if I ever had dinner parties, of course!

More excitingly, this is from a NEW BOOK!

This book, to be precise: "First Art - Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos" by MaryAnn Kohl

I have downloaded it to my Kindle (which I love love love), and we have been burning through the activities this week.

Anyway, this would be a brilliant activity to do if you'd run out of bread - good enough  to use to make bread rolls for lunch - YUM! This was also helped by the fact that the beautiful year-round tropical humidity in Pt Moresby means that bread rises beautifully if left outside on the balcony. OK, here it is...

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp (7g) sugar
• 1 T (20g) yeast
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 T oil

With your child's help, mix the water, sugar and yeast in a bowl until the yeast softens (2-3 mins) ... I have no idea what she means by that, but we did it anyway. Then add half the flour, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Biscuit loved getting to "mix mix mix!". Add the oil, salt and the rest of the flour.

Here you're supposed to pour it out onto a floured board and knead the dough. We cheated and chucked it in the food processor with the dough hook attachment. Anyway, the official directive is to "knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth, elastic and satiny. It should bounce back if a finger is poked into it".

Then put the dough into an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and a clean teatowel and leave it to rise in a warm area for about 45 minutes. (Ours was GINORMOUS!)

Punch it down and work into a smooth ball, then play with it as you would playdough...
You can make marks in the dough with forks, skewers, knives etc...

At around this time, you can preheat the oven to 200C (400F)

Biscuit and Mary... we covered her usual activity table with a clean tablecloth...

Biscuit helping decorate Mummy's shapes...

Biscuit's sculpture

 Now place your sculptures on a baking tray in the lower part of the oven and bake for 15-20 mins (larger sculptures may take longer!).

Fresh out of the oven.  Smells delicious!

Picnic time!!

Delicious hot with butter and jam!

 This really was the activity that kept on giving. Firstly, we had fun mixing the dough, watching it rise up. Then we got to play with the dough, have fun making shapes, squeezing, squishing, mashing it with forks. Then we got to watch the bread rise while it was baking in the oven, and smell delicious dough smells. Finally, we got to eat our little hot rolls for morning tea with yummy butter and jam.

Brilliant. Just brilliant!