Baking a cake is easy: mix flour, eggs, sugar and other stuff, then bake it. But to bake bread you also need “yeast,” which is a fungus (like mushrooms — weird!). Yeast is alive, and if you “feed” it by sprinkling warm water on it, it will grow and make your dough rise. You then “knead” the dough to squeeze out the air. We then rolled our dough into very yummy cinnamon rolls – try the recipe here!
Wee ones: These cinnamon rolls are round like circles. See if you can spot 3 circles in your room.
Little kids: If you make 8 cinnamon rolls and you eat just 1, how many are left? Bonus: If the dough starts off 3 inches thick in the bowl, and ends up twice as thick, how many inches did it rise?
Big kids: If your bread has to bake for 45 minutes starting at 5:20 pm, will it finish in time for your party at 6 pm? Bonus: If instead you bake a tray of 36 cinnamon rolls lined up in 4 rows, how many are in each row?
Answers:
Wee ones: Answers may include a clock, a toy ball, buttons, and shoelace holes.
Little kids: 7 rolls. Bonus: 3 more inches.
Big kids: Not quite — it will finish at 6:05 pm! Bonus: 9 rolls.
