Soda Bread Baking
This Soda Bread Baking Ed-venture is a great way to incorporate some essential maths skills into baking - and have plenty of fun and tasty food as a result!
Weighing, measuring, mixing, timing, and estimating are all skills we use in day-to-day life, and by using them in a fun activity such as baking - your child will become a mathematician without even realising!
The basic ingredients for educational kitchen fun are:
170g self-raising, wholemeal flour
170g plain flour
½ teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
290ml buttermilk (or alternatively, use warm milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice)
And here’s how you make delicious soda bread!
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6.
Step 2
Tip the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl and get stirring! It’s important to get your child really involved in the measuring, marking points on the jug and letting them create the mixture themselves.
Step 3
Make a dip in the centre of the mixture and pour in the buttermilk, then whisk it quickly to form a soft dough. If the dough seems a little stiff, there’s no harm in adding a dash more milk - but be careful not to make it too sticky!
Step 4
Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it - this only needs to be brief.
Step 5
Form into a round loaf and flatten it slightly giving it room to rise in the oven, then place on a lightly floured baking sheet.
Step 6
Mark a cross on the top (or anything you like! Your child is free to be creative with the finishing touches) and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Leave your soda bread to cool, then serve up your masterpiece to the family.
Your child will love seeing how a bowl of ingredients can turn into tasty food, and feel proud that their measuring skills made the perfect loaf of bread!
