How to Make a Sourdough Starter & Bread

This is my first time making a sourdough starter, and I figured it’d be a fun activity to try with the kids. In this blog post, I’ll be documenting our week-long experience making a sourdough starter and bread for the first time. 

Day 1:

• 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour 
• 1/4 cup of warm water

Simple, eh? We also used a clean pickle jar to hold our ingredients.

My cutie carefully poured 1/4 of a cup of warm water into a clean pickle jar.

Judging from the images I've seen online, this mixture looks a bit too dry, so we added two more tablespoons of warm water.

It's still a bit thick but slides off the fork with ease.

After mixing it thoroughly, here's the final result!

Day 2:

Despite being a little chilly in our home, the temperature has not prevented our sourdough starter from producing bubbles!

The sourdough starter will sit for another 24hrs then we'll feed it.

Day 3:

Time to feed our sourdough starter!

We filled the jar with a 1/2 c. of sourdough starter

then added a 1/4 c. of warm water and a 1/2 c. of flour. 

As you can see, I decided to use a different type of flour to feed our starter.

After adding more water, the consistency was a bit thicker than the pancake mix.

We decided to go ahead and name our sourdough starter, Loaf, and gave him some fun googly eyes :)

Day 4:

Our sourdough starter did not produce many bubbles, possibly because of the new flour we used and the smaller jar.

We continued our daily feedings and switched to our original wholemeal flour and larger jar.

• 1/2 cup of sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup of wholemeal flour
• 1/4 cup plus one tablespoon of warm water

Day 5:

We see more bubbles! Still not as bubbly as day two, but that's ok because we are doing this for the first time and will learn from our mistakes.

We are continuing with our daily feedings.

Day 6:

Mr Loaf is missing! I searched everywhere for him; then, about 45mins later, I found out that our youngest son had buried him in the backyard with a shovel. Thankfully, the lid was screwed on tightly, so no dirt got inside. We continued with the daily feedings:

• 1/2 cup of sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup of wholemeal flour
• 1/4 cup plus one tablespoon of warm water

Day 7: 

I'm not sure if our sourdough starter is ready because there aren't a ton of bubbles. The children and I will go ahead and bake some bread to see what happens. Either way, I'll be starting over again, so I want to give this batch "a go" before throwing it away.

Here is the recipe that we used:

• 1 cup of sourdough starter
• 1.5 cups of warm water
• 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1/2 cups of oil
• 1.5 tsp of salt
• 6 cups of all-purpose flour

Refrigerate dough overnight.

Place half of your freshly kneaded bread into a greased bread pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 40 to 45 minutes.

Things I would do differently next time:

• I would not have switched flours on day three or used a smaller jar
• I would not have used tap water
• I would have measured the dough inside the jar to see if it had risen
• I would put our sourdough starter in a safer place
• I need to figure out why the dough did not rise; maybe it was the type of flour we used?

Final results!

It's not very pretty, but it doesn't taste too bad. The worst thing about it is the texture. The crust is complex, and the middle is soft and dense. My husband describes the taste as a cross between soda bread and cornbread. He says that the sweet aftertaste is better than the initial taste, eeks; at least he was kind enough to try it.

Making bread was a fun experiment, even if it wasn't successful. I think it's important to teach children that mistakes are a part of the learning process and not take them too seriously. 

Second attempt!

We did a couple of things differently this time:

• We used  high-grade flour, which is excellent for making bread
• We used active dry yeast (an essential ingredient)
• After kneading the bread for at least 10mins it took shape in a large bowl for about 3 hours before refrigerating overnight 

The results tasted significantly better than our first attempt at making bread. It wasn't perfect, but edible.

For our third attempt at making bread, we decided to make pretzels for the first time. The shape was slightly off, but the taste and texture were divine. My family and I had at least two pieces each. The only things I did differently this time were kneading the dough a bit longer (15 mins) and letting it set out at room temperature for 4 hrs before baking it. We did not refrigerate it.

Lastly, here is a picture of the bread my son made this evening. Aww, he's too cute.

P.S. It's been one year and our sourdough starter is going strong! 

Gardening with Children!

Gardening with children has many benefits. The health benefits include growing foods rich in micronutrients that children are more likely to consume and prepare because they helped develop. Growing vegetables and fruits not only saves money, but it’s also good for the environment. The food doesn’t have to travel far to get to our plates.  Another lovely benefit from gardening, aside from children learning new life skills, is its collaborative work that fosters relationships.

How to start a garden?

1. Know what vegetables and fruit are in season for growing. Google your location and local planting calendar. Most seedbeds are prepared by early Spring. If you’re like me and have had little to no experience with gardening, I recommend watching a few how-to start a garden videos on youtube.

2. For seeds to properly germinate, they need:

• Adequate water (Water plants in the morning to prevent fungal disease. Water seeds evenly. For better drainage and aeration, raised seedbeds to work best.)

• Favourable temperature (Typically 18–21°C or 64-69 °F)

• Available oxygen (Seeds have generally planted a depth of two times their width. Make sure the soil is loose enough for aeration but still able to hold water.)

• Light (In the Southern Hemisphere, North facing seedbeds get the most sunlight, and South facing seedbeds get the most sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere.)

3. What type of growing media you use will depend on your soil conditions and the plant's needs. Seedbeds will need aeration, good drainage (crumbly soil), and topsoil at least 30cm/12inches deep.

 

4. Peat (decomposed plant matter) is added to soil to help hold water. If the ground needs more drainage, sand is added. Dolomite and lime help raise soils ph levels. However, a fungicide can help control fungal diseases. It can kill young seedlings, so be careful. 

I’m very new to gardening, but I want to share what I’ve learned so far with you. Hopefully, you’ve gained some valuable information from this post, albeit short. Happy gardening!

    They were growing sugar baby watermelons! 

More fun activities!

Grass heads in a cup with a laminated picture of your child's face :)

    Steps:

1. Laminate a picture of your child's face, cut it out and place it inside the plastic cup.
2. Have your child fill the cup with soil and sow some grass seeds!
3. Ensure they provide adequate water (but not too much) and ensure that the seeds get plenty of sunlight.     

Grass heads in cheesecloth!

1. You need soil, grass seed, cheesecloth, buttons and straight pins.
2. Make a small sac with your cheesecloth.
3. Put a few tablespoons of grass seed inside the cloth, then layer it with soil.   
4. Tie the small sac off with a knot or rubber band.
5. Secure buttons with straight pins to make a face.
6. Place the grass head in a cup that's regularly watered and has access to plenty of sunshine.
7. Have fun watching how fast the grass heads grow! 

Taking children to pick strawberries is also fun, educational activity!

    Picking (eating) strawberries

How to Entertain Children While Travelling

Travelling with children doesn't have to be a dreadful experience. Contrary to belief travelling with kids can be fun! With a little bit of planning and effort, there are many activities that children can do while en route.

Quiet books are a great activity to help young children practice and learn new skills, for example, fine motor skills, language development, and problem-solving abilities. Activities that are child-led and open-ended provoke curiosity and nurture cognitive development. Children learn best when interested in what they're doing, and parents can also foster social skills through interactive play.

Entertaining children while travelling doesn't have to cost much money or take too much time to prepare. Don't overthink things, and keep it simple. The nice thing about using items found around the home or at a second-hand store is that it's affordable and eco-friendly. Here are a few activities that we've tried.

1. Supplies: pipe cleaners, yarn, a pen, scissors and large beads (not suitable for very young children as the beads could be a choking hazard).

 

2. Children's quiet book pages.

Removable felt dolls, hats and starfish.

This activity helps young children develop fine motor skills by weaving the orange and purple felt through the DIY felt caterpillars.

3.  Have fun learning the capitals of the world's countries along with their flags.

Buy a cheap "countries of the world" poster and cut out the flags, then have your children quiz you on each country's capital.

Along the way, they'll learn the names of the world's countries, their capitals, and flags. When they're ready, you can quiz them and make a game out of it!

4. Have them expand their minds by developing their own short story.

Step 1: Think of an idea.
Step 2: Create a character and a setting.
Step 3: The Beginning.
Step 4: The Conflict.
Step 5: The Turning Point.
Step 6: The Resolution.
Step 7: The End.

Alternatively, they can draw, write letters to friends & family, or make a comic strip.

5. Make some jewellery from broken necklaces, small toys, or items found at the second-hand shop!

6. A tray, tinker toys, Legos, magnets, some paper and a pen for a handy travel kit.

7. Second-hand shop cross stitch kit!

8. License plate game!

Someone in the car sees a license plate number then picks a theme. For example, we'll use the license plate below, AWM, and food will be the theme.

Everyone in the car has to develop a creative response for the food acronym, i.e. Amazing Warm Muffins! Whoever the leader thinks has the best answer will be the next leader.

9. The alphabet game!

My name is (an A name, i.e. Anna)

My husband's name is (an A name, i.e. Anthony)

We live in (a place that starts with an A, i.e. Australia)

And we sell (something that starts with an A, i.e. Apples)

"B, my name is Betty, my husband's name is Brendon, we live in Brazil, and we sell bracelets."

"C, my name is Chad, my wife's name is Cindy, we live in Canada, and we sell cars."

10. Other neat ideas found on Pinterest!

Safe travels!