***This post was originally written during COVID.***
*We were originally going to make full loaves of bread and donate them for the Sacrament, but due to COVID, our ward is only using store bought bread. So, I figured it would be easier for the girls to knead a smaller amount of dough anyway. Plus, I wasn’t comfortable asking families to provide tons of flour, since I don’t know if someone is struggling financially (and our Primary activity budget is teeny tiny).
Here’s how we did it:
Before the Activity Prep
– Text the ingredients to the parents so they’d know what to have on hand
– Also tell the parents that you probably won’t have time during the activity to finish the second rise, so they’ll need to help their daughter actually put the bread in the oven and watch it while it’s baking. Tell them that if they don’t want to bake it then, they can put it in the fridge and bake it the next day. With the recipe, include the baking temp and time.
– Pre-measure your ingredients and have everything set up so the girls can watch everything you do as you do it. (This meant that I also set up my phone holder so that I could switch back and forth from them seeing my counter and seeing my face–poor things!)
Activity Opening:
– Before we even prayed, I made sure they had turned their oven lights on and washed their hands.
– After that, we went straight to prayer (usually we do an Article of Faith first, but I was saving that for the yeast or rising time).
Activity Basics:
– Start on the bread. See below for the steps we took and the mini bread recipe I made for them.
– Once you’re at the first rising stage, you can do some kind of fun activity. We did an Article of Faith review. Then, since some of the girls had goals to become more limber, we did stretching exercises for fun. Each girl showed us one stretch they like. Some didn’t know stretches, but made one up. It was a fun way to pass the time while we waited for the dough to rise.
The Mini Bread Recipe
(I experimented and adapted this mini recipe from the full-sized Brown-Eyed Baker recipe)
Print Out
Here’s what I gave the children/parents in a doc:
Mini Bread Recipe
1 t. yeast
7/8 Cup Water
1 t. salt
1 T. sugar (did a little under a tablespoon)
1 T. butter (about 1T)
2.5 Cup flour
One hour before we meet on Zoom, turn on your oven light (this will heat your oven for faster rising while we meet)
Wash hands because we’ll be hand mixing!
Recipe Instructions
Here are the instructions I told them as we made the bread on Zoom:
Mix
In a mixing bowl, stir to dissolve the yeast in ¾ cup of the warm water, and let sit for 5 minutes. (This is when you could have your opening prayer and article of faith, or however you like to start activities.)
Put sugar, salt, room temperature butter, and most of the flour in a bowl, with a well in the center and stir in liquids.
Knead
Knead on floured surface until dough becomes silky and stretchy (about 10 minutes). Do the windowpane test with a golf-ball-sized piece. (When you stretch a golf-sized piece of dough into a square, can you kind of see through it like a windowpane? You can search online in advance for more info on this if you want.)
Rise
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and turn it over so it is completely coated.
Cover with plastic wrap and set in a draft-free place to rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. (Since we try to keep our meetings to about an hour, we did the oven light trick where they had their oven light on for an hour before we started, then the oven was a little warm, then they turned the light off and they put their dough in the oven to rise. We did about a 30-minute rise, if I remember right. It probably needed more rising time, but I chose to move forward so we didn’t end too late. While it was rising this first time, we did some stretching exercises, as mentioned above.)
Shape
Turn the dough out onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Gently press/punch it all over to remove any air pockets. Gently pat it into a 3×6-inch rectangle.
Roll up the rectangle, starting on the short end, into a very tight cylinder. Pinch to seal the seams and the ends, tuck the ends of the roll into the bread and place seam into bottom of greased loaf pan.
Rise
Cover the loaf loosely and place in a draft-free area until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes. (After the girls had shaped their mini bread and set it to rise for the second time, I gave them (and their moms) the baking instructions and we ended the activity, since I didn’t want to keep them on Zoom forever!)
Bake
Position an oven rack on the second lowest setting and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Brush the loaf with melted butter.