Abby's Great Brain Project

Abby worked hard on a project for school called "The Great Brain." She chose to learn more about baking. With the help of her mentor (aka: Mom) we read up on the different kinds of leaveners used in breads, baked many things using those leaveners, toured BYU bakery, and at the end Abby shared her knowledge in a presentation she gave to her 2nd grade class. Together Abby and I baked chocolate chip cookies, snowball cookies (twice), white bread, and banana bread. At the class presentation she showed them many of the different tools used in baking, demonstrated how to proof yeast, and gave the kids a taste test of foods made with each kind of leavener. She gave samples of chocolate chip cookies, sourdough bread, cinnamon raisin bread, pound cake, banana bread, and pita bread. Here is the paper she wrote for her project.

Abby's Great Brain Project: BAKING

The reasons I picked baking are that I want to be a good baker and I think it is fun to bake. There are many things to know about baking. I will share with you some of the things I have learned while I studied this subject.

There are many tools used in baking. Some of them are: measuring cups and spoons, pans, mixing bowls, spatulas, cooling racks, and an oven. Measuring cups and spoons help you to measure your ingredients correctly. The oven can be put on different temperatures. That is important because you need the right temperature for different foods.

I went to the BYU bakery. My uncle works there. He was able to show me the big oven. The oven has six shelves. The shelves rotate around and around like a ferris wheel when you press a lever. The oven can bake ninety-six loaves of bread at a time. There is a mixer that I saw there. It was huge! It can hold 130 pounds of dough. That makes 86 loaves of bread! There was a machine that had a conveyor belt that had rollers on it that flattened dough. Then there was another machine that cut the dough into dough shapes when you move the lever back and forth. My mom and I got to taste green, mint frosting out of an enormous bowl. There was also a machine that filled cream puffs with custard. I got one to taste but I dropped it on the floor on accident.

Different ingredients are used in making different baked goods. Some ingredients used are: flour, salt, sugar, eggs, oil, butter, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, yeast and sponge. Not the kind of sponge that you clean your counter with. This kind of sponge is yeast that you grow yourself. You can make all kinds of things from these ingredients like cookies, cakes, batter breads, and yeast breads. The last four ingredients that I named are called leaveners. Leaveners make bubbles in bread, cookies, and cake. The bubbles make them rise.

Baking soda is a chemical compound. Baking powder is baking soda mixed with cream of tartar and cornstarch. Yeast is a plant that is not green. To make it rise it needs to be fed sugar. Sponge is a mixture of ingredients that you leave out on your counter so that the yeast spores in the air can come and grow there.

3500 years ago in Egypt they made bread with yeast. Before the Egyptians discovered baking with yeast, all bread was flat and hard as a rock. On the walls of pyramids there were drawings and messages that showed the people making bread. In the tombs of the pharaohs they would put things for the afterlife that they would need. One of those things was bread shaped like a servant because they thought he would need servants in the afterlife too. They had forty kinds of bread. They recently found a bowl with bread in it that was 3500 years old that looked a lot like it did right after it was made. I am thankful for the Egyptians discovery of baking with yeast.

I had a lot of fun baking and learning about baking. I hope you will too.