My youngest son and daughter in law went skiing and my son, Mike, and I watched Harper and Hayden for a few days after our frigid shutdown in Texas. It was a busy time of tea parties, baking, cookie dipping, slushies from the neighborhood Ice Cream Truck, and gnome making out of socks. My son made them an Olaf snowman and drew pictures of Olaf for them to paint. Harper had kindergarten upstairs with three other little girls and a wonderful teacher. Hayden was a busy ballerina and tap dancer.
These were our candy dipped Oreo cookies that we had for a tea party. You can purchase molds at Michael's or JoAnn's for making these quick and easy treats.
This was our rainbow bread dough. I made this several years ago and you can see some of my other grandchildren here.
I love looking back on the grands' younger pictures of fun times in my kitchen.
Yield: 2 loaves
Rainbow Bread
This is a fun activity for young ones and the recipe was given to me from my friend, Mary, who had been a preschool teacher.
Ingredients
- 2 packages active dry yeast
- 1 T granulated sugar
- 1 c warm water [100° to 115° F, approximately]
- 1/3 c olive oil (or vegetable oil)
- 3/4 c hot water
- 2 t salt
- 5 1/2 to 6 c AP flour (start with 5 cups)
- cornmeal or semolina flour
Instructions
- Stir the yeast, sugar and warm water together in the bowl of a stand mixer; let sit until yeast dissolves and starts to proof.
- In the meantime, add the olive oil to the hot water and let cool to lukewarm. Add the salt, and combine with the yeast mixture. Stirring vigorously with the dough hook attachment, add the flour 1 c at a time, until the dough almost comes away from the sides of the bowl. [The dough will seem rather soft and sticky at this point.] Continue kneading the dough with the dough hook, adding a couple tablespoons of flour as you go along. Alternatively, you could turn out the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead with your hands. Continue kneading until the dough has absorbed enough flour that it is easy to handle, about 2 to 4 minutes.
- When the dough is soft and smooth, let rest for 5 or 6 minutes and then divide into two. (At this point, you add your food coloring to dough that has been separated into as many colors as you would like. You can have the child then put them together and stack and twist them). Without food coloring, you roll each half into a rectangle about 12″ x 8″. Starting from the wide end, roll the rectangle up quite tightly, pinching the seams as you roll. Let the rolled loaves rise on a piece of parchment paper, that has been sprinkled with cornmeal or semolina flour, in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 50 to 60 minutes. Place a baking stone* on the middle rack of the oven and preheat to 425° F while the bread proofs. (At this point, I slashed the of the loaves).
- After the dough has doubled in bulk, place the loaves on top of the hot stone, parchment and all (I use a rimless cookie sheet to transfer the loaves). Bake 30- 40 minutes (directions said 40, but this was too long for my oven!), or until the loaves are a rich, golden color and make a hollow sound when you tap the crust with your knuckles, top and bottom. Cool on a rack and slice when fresh.
- *If you have no baking stone, butter one or two baking sheets well and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place the just-rolled loaves on the sheets, and then let them rise until doubled in bulk. Bake the loaves on the sheet[s] on the middle rack, the same as you would with the stone.
Thank you for visiting! xo
I am sharing this with:
Full Plate
Love Your Creativity Link Party
Meal Plan Monday
