School Holiday / Vacation Care Incursions

In 2012 Make Bread is offering incursions for school holiday programs only during summer and Easter breaks.

Pizza, bread or bread roll making incursion is a fun and educational activity that appeals to kids of all ages.

Hot Cross Buns making incursions are available throughout the Easter school holidays, half of which has already been booked. If you would like a morning filled with the aroma of freshly baked organic hot cross buns for your Easter holidays, please book now.

School / Kinder Incursions

Bread Making incursion can be incorporated into different topics and subjects, whether you are studying food, design or maths. We can tailor the incursion to suit your facility and the number of students.

Hot Cross Buns making incursions are available only for a limited time from March 1st until Easter 2012. They are very popular, so early bookings are advised.

Please note: Make Bread is fully booked for incursions 

until mid October 2012.

For more information about Bread Making incursions, follow the links:

School Incursions

Kinder Incursions

For bookings and inquiries, please contact us here.

In my recent post on butter, Butter or Margarine on Bread?, I wrote about why butter is a better option. Here we’ll look at types of butter and how to make your own butter and soft butter spread.

Types of butter

Butter is mostly made form cows’ milk.  In the past, cream was collected from the raw milk and then churned.  This was and still is the best butter, also known as raw cultured butter.

Cultured butter in the shops isn’t made the old-fashioned way.  It’s rather made with pasteurised cream and cultures are added to finished butter.

Unsalted (also called continental) butter is made as above without bacterial cultures added. Salted butter as the name says, has salt added.

Organic butter is made with organic cream without any additives.

The best choice would be homemade organic raw cultured butter. However, unless you have your own cows or access to organic raw milk, it’s close to impossible to get it.

How to make your own butter

As said above, to make raw cultured butter from scratch you’d need raw milk (and lots of it!).  Alternatively, you can buy cream and make your own.

Use cream with the highest fat percentage, 35% plus.  Pour it into a deep bowl and using a mixer beat until stiff.  Continue beating until some liquid starts to separate and cream turns yellow.   It will take some time.  When butter forms, press it together to expel liquid, put in a container and refrigerate.

In my opinion, this method isn’t worth the time and money.  When you calculate the cost of cream + time, butter is cheaper.  Though it is good to know the method in an emergency:  you need butter for a cake let’s say, the shop is closed or too far to drive but you have some cream in the fridge!

Soft Butter Spread Recipe

I’ve seen in the shops some butter spreads claiming to be spreadable.  They have oils added or water content increased.  So I decided to try it at home hoping that butter and oil won’t separate– it worked!  Butter naturally contains lecithin.  Lecithin is emulsifier – a substance that binds water and oil.   The first time I made soft butter spread was about 2 years ago.  Since then I’ve played with different oils and ingredients.

For the basic recipe you need a quantity of softened butter and oil of your choice (try to use good quality cold pressed extra virgin oil).  Also, I like to add water – it makes the spread a bit brittle, but there are fewer calories.

• 250g softened butter (or 2 sticks of butter for our US readers, that equals to 227g)
• ¼ cup oil
• ¼ cup water

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix using a handheld stick blender, mixer, food processor or a whisker until all the ingredients are blended together.  The spread will be shiny but turn dull when refrigerated.   This recipe yields about 370g butter spread.

One of my experiments was to mix yoghurt instead of oil – to make a sort of soft cultured butter spread.  The result was interesting: instead of combining together, it started to separate a bit and to form little pockets of liquids, as when you make butter from cream!  Nevertheless, the taste was really good. That is my favourite soft butter spread as well as spread made with extra virgin olive oil .  Our kids like milder tasting oils like macadamia.

Note:

• You can omit water and add ½ cup oil only
• On the photo, it looks like 1 cup of liquids added, but the level increased when butter was added
• Using water and butter only doesn’t produce the best result, but it’s possible to make it as well
• Use this recipe as a guide only: increase or decrease the liquids to have firmer or softer spread
• While butter spread is still soft you can add herbs, garlic or other flavourings.

Nutritional Values of butter and butter spread

Here are nutritional values of each, butter and butter spread compared per 100g, using macadamia oil (no water) in quantities stated in recipe above:

You can see the change in decreased energy and saturated fat fields.

I make soft butter spread to have soft butter in the morning, rather than out of worry about the saturated fat or calorie counting.  Long before we found about nutritional panels and kilojoules, people knew that  foods rich in calories shouldn’t be eaten by kilos.

Our customer Ross Bury has built a wonderful wood-fired pizza oven and booked our Family Bread Making Class. I had the pleasure of conducting the class for his family and baking in the oven was a great experience. Breads and pizzas were absolutely amazing! That taste can’t be achieved in a conventional oven.

You can see the wood-fired oven in this video and what Ross said about our Family Bread Making Class.  Bury Junior has grasped the stretching and folding technique in no time!

The freshly baked bread is on the table. But what is next to it: butter or margarine?

The butter vs. margarine debate is always a hot one. Butter has earned a lot of negative press due to being high in saturated fat. The same happened to coconut oil. In fact, coconut oil has anti-viral and many other healing properties. And butter? Well, it seems we have gone full circle and began to realize some positive facts about butter.

I never buy margarine, we only eat butter. Having said that, we don’t consume a lot of it and butter is not automatically in every sandwich and on the table every day. Instead it might be avocado, tahini (ground sesame paste), sour cream, pesto, dips, coconut oil or just a lot of veggies as a base. I cook with butter, too. Scrambled eggs on butter taste soooo much better than scrambled eggs on oil.

Butter is a healthier option

Here are just some of the health benefits of eating butter:

• Butter is completely natural nutrient dense food
• Butter is rich in natural vitamin A, also good source of vitamins D, E, K
• Also contains mineral selenium, an anti-oxidant, iodine and lecithin
• Linoleic, lauric and butyric acids play important roles in our body and butter contains them all
• And yes, it contains cholesterol – a very important ingredient for brain development, cell elasticity and healthy intestines. Children especially need it in the diet!

If you aren’t convinced so far, please do some research on the topic. I recommend reading this article as a start.

Why margarine should be avoid

What is margarine and what is in it? Margarine spread is oil in the base, mostly processed, fully or partly hydrogenised (chemical process) to solidify it into the spreadable form. It contains not so healthy polyunsaturated fat and bad trans-fatty acids, the latter formed during the process.

In addition, most margarine spreads contain preservatives, usually preservative 220, artificial colours and flavours. Before you eat it again, read the ingredients!

In the past decades, as the consumption of butter and other saturated fat decreased in favour of low fat diet, margarine and highly processed oils consumption – cholesterol, cancer and heart problems increased.

Danger of Polyunsaturated Highly Processed Oils

Vegetable oils are healthier option? Well, vegetable oils aren’t all made equal. On the healthy side there are cold pressed extra virgin oils, on the other highly processed oils containing high percentage of polyunsaturated oils. Polyunsaturated oils are very unstable when exposed to heat, oxygen and moisture and become rancid. Rancid oils contain free radicals that cause damage to cells, DNA, etc.

About 30% of calories in the modern age diet come from polyunsaturated oils. Instead it should be only a few percents. So watch for the amount of polyunsaturated fats, especially in processed and fast foods. Processed oils are cheaper and widely used in the food industry. For frying, coconut oil, butter and animal fats are better option.

One Unpractical Thing about butter

There is only one thing about butter that isn’t handy: it takes time to soften on room temperature to spread easily. There are two ways to overcome that: to cut it into smaller chunks so it softens faster or to make soft butter spread. Stay tuned, the recipe is coming soon, as well as types of butter available (some are better than the other) and how to make your own butter.

The winter has arrived – the best time for bread making! To celebrate, Make Bread has a special offer for Bread Making Classes during June 2011.

Bread Making Classes Special

Take $50 off the regular price for classes booked and held during June 2011.

Normally $295, now $245!

This offer ends 30th June 2011.

 

More Info About Bread Making Classes

Bread Making Classes Bookings and Enquiries

Flipping the calendars to May and fresh mornings remind us that we are well and truly in autumn. Bircher muesli from the fridge gives way to warm breakfasts. And what better way to warm up than with freshly baked scones.

Scones fall in the quick breads category as they are made with self raising flour. This scone recipe in particular is simple and easy, you don’t have to reserve it for special weekend breakfasts. I make buttermilk scones on school mornings as well. If the picture of rubbing the butter into flour, cutting circles, sticky hands and kids running wild instead of getting ready for school comes up, relax.  I can tell you I love baking but wouldn’t do anything complicated on a busy morning. I get up, turn the oven on, go to the bathroom, make the dough, bake, then wake up the kids to a lovely aroma – good trick if they aren’t keen to leave the warm beds .

Buttermilk scones recipe

This buttermilk scones recipe is based on the original CWA (Country Women Association) show scones recipe published in the Epicure years ago. The cut out from The Age newspapers became yellow with time. I gave it my twist replacing milk with buttermilk. Buttermilk scones are fluffier, but still crunchy outside.

• 3 cups (450 g) SR flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1 – 1 1/2 cup buttermilk

Note:  If you don’t have buttermilk, just use the same amount of milk. If you consume buttermilk regularly, click on the link to learn how to make your own endless supply of buttermilk so you never run out.

1. Before you start, turn the oven on to hot (220 -240 C)
2. Mix flour and salt in a bowl .
3. Add cream and buttermilk and mix with a spoon or knife until the ingredients come together into crumbly dough.
4. At this stage you can tip the dough onto a floured bench and knead it briefly or for a rustic look just scoop portions of dough using a spoon or hands onto a floured tray and bake. The second option is handy in particular if you are in the hurry or if the dough is too wet for kneading (see photo on the bottom of the page).
5. Roll the dough or flatten with hands to 1.5 cm thickness or thicker if you prefer really tall scones. Make sure the dough isn’t sticking to the surface below.
6. Cut the dough into squares using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife.  Square scones are faster to make as there aren’t any cut-offs and re-kneading to do.  For a traditional look, use round cutters, press into the dough without twisting. Whatever the cutting tool, it should be sharp and leave clean edges without squashing them.
7. Place the scones close together onto a floured tray. Alternatively heat up the tray with the oven and place the scones on the hot tray without flour. As you can see, to save time I didn’t bother cutting the outer edges.
8. Bake on the top shelf for 10-15 minutes until golden.
9. Serve warm.

Variations

• To make cheese scones as on the top and bottom photo on this page, add a cup of grated cheese.
• Add finely chopped fresh herbs
• For a sweet variation, add 2-3 tablespoon of sugar and a cup of dried of fresh fruit, cinnamon or mixed spices
• Mix in some ground coffee for a mocha flavour
• Or create your unique scone variety.

Photo on the right: Rustic Buttermilk Cheese Scones

“Hi Vesna

An update on our bread making.

We are making all our bread now and just loving it I still can not believe how easy it is. We have not brought bread since and in the next few weeks will try a few more ideas and see how they go.

We are making our own pizzas now chicken, mango, rocket and sweet chili sauce just beautiful and pumpkin, goats cheese with rocket and onion next best.

So thank you once again we are having fun experimenting

Have a great day”

Sandy & Ross, Essendon

Make Bread is wishing our past and future customers and business partners a happy and prosperous New Year 2011!

MakeBread.com.au

Make Bread has started taking bookings for School Holiday Program incursions for January 2011. If you would like to book our Bread Making incursion for your school or kinder holiday / vacation care program, you will need to be quick as dates are filling up fast. There is limited availability for the last two weeks in January.

Bread Making incursions for School holiday / Vacation care programs or childcares are tailored to cater for the age gap that is common within the group.  It is conducted with the emphasis on fun as well as on education.

For more information about Bread Making incursions, follow the links:

School Incursions

Kinder Incursions

For bookings and inquiries, please contact us here.