Science is Delicious!

I'm off on a new adventure this year. We made to decision to homeschool our son. Now, I've heard all kinds of responses to this from "Good for you!" to "homeschooling is for religious zealots." I'm well aware that there's much passion over the subject on both sides. Right now though, let's just pretend we all agree so we can get on with the subject at hand. SCIENCE.
Science unlocks a world of mystery. There’s nothing quite like watching the lights go on in the eyes of your kid. As if that’s not cool enough, making a science experiment delicious is icing on the cake - although I’m not talking about cake today. Today, it’s the wonderful world of bread.

Oh my goodness, the smell of bread baking in your home is out of this world! Sure, there are candles that supposedly smell that way, but they gag me. There is really no way that smell can be created any other way than the fantastical experience of making it yourself. However, trying to get a 10 year old boy interested in such things is a bit more of a challenge. Today, I was determined we were going to make science happen in the kitchen. “Mom, what has making bread got to do with science?” Oh kiddo, making bread is all science. You just wait & see!

I decided to use a tried & true recipe from one of my favorite old coloring cookbooks, The Vegetarian Epicure Book 2, by Anna Thomas. This book has been through the ringer in my house. In a different version of myself 15 years ago, I was a militant vegetarian with an axe to grind. (Not that I have any issues with vegetarians, it's just that I was a bit of a handful.) I’ve mellowed tremendously since those days, but 5 ½ months into pregnancy that I stepped back over to the dark side & started eating bacon. That’s a whole other story in itself. I do tend to ramble along the way, but I’ll try to stick with the story of the today.

Anna's recipe is beautiful, simple, delicious, & has never failed even me. The magic starts with 2 pkgs of yeast and a 1/3 of a cup of warm water. Let them sit quietly while you put 2 cups of milk into a pan for scalding. See, kid? Two steps in & we've got TWO kinds of SCIENCE happening!


Saccharomyces cerevisiae — baker's yeast. by Bob Blaylock

The first is the yeast & warm water - remember a week or so ago when we were talking about the Fungus Kingdom? Yeast is a fungus that makes bread rise & the action begins in the warm water. Be careful! Too hot and you'll kill those poor little self-reproducing spores, but too cold and they'll stay sleeping in their dormant state. SCIENCE!

The second is scalding milk. If you didn't scald the milk, the whey protein in the milk would weaken the gluten, & that's no bueno. (Whey protein is the name of globular proteins that can be isolated from whey. It is typically a mixture of globinstagers beta-lactoglobulin (~65%), alpha-lactalbumin (~25%), and serum albumin (~8%), which are soluble in their native culture forms, independent of pH. - says Wikipedia) The scalding process breaks down the whey protein so your bread has no issues rising. SCIENCE!

Once you've got your scalded milk off the heat, pour it into your mixing bowl, add 3TBSP butter, & 2TBSP of sugar & let it sit to cool. While it's cooling, get 7 - 7 1/2 cups of flour into another bowl & add 1TBSP of salt to it.

When you are absolutely certain the milk is cooled to lukewarm in temperature, add the yeast. Which by the way, my son took one look at & freaked at how big the yeast had grown! Ahhh...visible science!

With an electric beater, mix into the milk/yeast combo 2 cups of your flour salt combo using a low speed on your mixer until it is nice and smooth. Being an egg bread, of course we'd be remiss to leave them out. So you'll need 4 egg yolks & 1 whole egg, lightly beaten together. Reserve 2 TBSP of the beaten egg mixture & add the rest to the batter. Beat again until smooth.

Then gradually add enough flour to make a stiff dough. When the dough is too stiff to be stirred with a spoon, turn it out onto a well floured surface. Knead 10 to 15 minutes, adding more flour as necessary, until the dough is smooth & elastic.

Form the dough into a ball & put it in a large, buttered bowl, turning it over once so it is coated on all sides. Cover the bowl with a towel and put it in a draft free place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch the dough down & cut it into 2 pieces. Pat each piece into a smooth oblong, about 14" long and 6" wide. Slice the oblongs into 3 even strips, leaving them connected at one end. Starting at the connected end, form a thick braid, tucking under the last bit and pinching it to the others.

Place the braids in 2 buttered medium-sized loaf pans.Cover the loaves lightly with a towel & let sit for 30 minutes or until about 1/2 again as large. Now here I changed things up a bit. The recipe says to add 1tsp cream to the reserved egg & brush the loaves with it, which I did. But then, to one loaf, we sprinkled the top with kosher salt and garlic powder. To the 2nd loaf, we sprinkled a bit of sugar. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 for 45-50 minutes. I have Stoneware loaf pans, so I baked mine at 350 instead. They took right at 45 minutes.