Bake Off Apprentice Style Week

This was my favourite week in teaching.  You can read why here and can see why in photos below.  I will take you through day-by-day.

MONDAY

The week started with a video from Lord Sugar:

Children split themselves into two teams, chose a name and appointed a project manager.  

Then we were straight into baking.  We started by watching Paul Hollywood's Bread, Episode 1, the first 10 minutes (Bloomer Tutorial).  I gave a quick input for each technique, and in pairs children made 1 mix for different flavoured dough balls.  

Throughout the whole week we followed this recipe which I put together from my experience of baking bread and many different recipes.  

Ingredients:

500g of strong bread flour (white OR wholemeal).

7g dried yeast (1 sachet).

1 tablespoon of sea salt and sugar

2 tablespoons of olive oil.

APPROX 1 mug of water (300ml).

2 tablespoons of EXTRA ingredients (could be Olives, Sundried Tomatoes, Chilli, Rosemary and Sea Salt).

Method:

1. Add flour to bowl
2. Add yeast on one side of bowl
3. Add salt on other side of bowl
4. Add olive oil, sugar and EXTRA ingredients to middle of bowl.
5. Cover one hand in olive oil.
6. Add small amount of water to middle of bowl and mix with hand gently.  
7. Keep adding water until the dough is in ONE BALL.  Please note you may not need to use all the water.  The dough should be together and not too wet.
8. Place the big ball of dough on a WELL OILED surface.
9. KNEAD the dough for 5 minutes on the oiled surface.  
10. Clean and dry the bowl and pour oil round the top edge so it covers the bowl.  
11. Place cling film over the bowl.  
12. Leave for 1 hour and a half to prove in a warmish place.
13. Knock out the air.
14. Shape into balls the size of your fist and place on baking paper on tray.
15. Leave to prove for 1 hour, covered in cling film or tea towel.
16. Remove covering, spray with Olive Oil and cook for 15-20 mins at 180 degrees.  
17. Leave to cool on wire rack.

While the dough was proving, we watched the following video about yeast before children setup science experiments about yeast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYXjURcBk98

The children were allowed to investigate any question they wanted using a variety of resources and equipment.

This kept them busy while the dough was proving and so you can imagine their amazement when they saw that their dough had gone from this:

To this:

 We then shaped the dough into small(ish) balls ready to prove once more before cooking.

 Then we left them to prove:

 Baking time arrived:

 Children then tasted the dough balls and chose 4 flavours per team to bake and sell on Wednesday.  Using sainsburys.co.uk, children decided what ingredients they wanted to buy.  This involved them working out timings, ratios of recipes and cost - lots of hidden real-real-life maths!!

TUESDAY

The second day started with a visit from a parent who had set up a business.  She brought along business plans, catalogues, publicity and, most importantly, her expertise.  She helped children write business plans, decide on prices and create their adverts.

I had written to some local charities explaining what we were doing and asking them to send in some persuasive paragraphs so children can choose which ones to support.  They spent some time on Tuesday reading these and voting, with both groups choosing the same two charities; one which supports stroke victims and one which is wildlife-based.

Finally, the time arrived for our Sainsbury's order to be delivered.  We all gathered out the front of the school and were excited when the van entered.

 After transporting the bags to the "bakeries" (classrooms) and emptying the ingredients.  It was time to split them up into the teams, according to what they had ordered.  Finally, the two teams set to, preparing their bakeries for the mad baking day tomorrow.  This is how the classrooms looked at the end of Tuesday:

WEDNESDAY

This was our first baking day.

THURSDAY

We started today with the results from yesterday and children discussing what they wanted to change today. Then again, they baked and baked and baked.  Mixed and kneaded and proved.