Monday, August 30, 2010

Sun Bread

I love Elisa Kleven.  For us, it started with The Paper Princess series and because we enjoyed those books so much, we borrowed everything we could find by her from the library.  We have enjoyed every single book!


Sun Bread begins on a cold and dreary day.  Everyone misses the sun, and the baker decides to bake a sun bread.  As the bread bakes, everyone (including the sun) comes out to share in its goodness.  C and R both loved reading this book.  The illustrations are colorful and they enjoyed finding some of the characters from other Elisa Kleven books.  At the end of the book, there is a recipe for sun bread.  This is the first time I have ever made bread from scratch without using a bread machine.  Click here for the sun bread recipe posted on Elisa Kleven's website.  The recipe is easy, and C and R enjoyed making and eating the bread. 

C and R mixed all of the ingredients.  We had to knead the dough for eight minutes and C did it the entire time!  He really enjoyed kneading.  R was outside playing with neighborhood kids while C did this.


The dough had to rise for an hour.  Then we shaped it to look like a sun.  C and R enjoyed using their fingers to make the eyes and mouth, and they really liked forming the sun's corona.  To do this we made long snakes of dough, curled them into snail shapes and attached them to the sun.



Once the sun was formed, we let it rise for another hour and then baked it in the oven for twenty minutes.


There is nothing tastier than warm bread right out of the oven, especially when it is smothered in homemade butter also made by C and R.

For those of you who have asked why my husband's photo never appears, that is his thumb!  He likes his anonymity but I guess he won't mind his thumb appearing here!  He enjoyed the bread too!


The book is fantastic and so is the bread recipe.  I recommend both!

14 comments:

Amanda said...

What a fun project and it looks delicious too!

danita said...

def. will check this out! right now we are trying to make amish friendship bread, but it's starting to turn a little funky! we'll see!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

I was just thinking about Sun Bread this morning. We're having a dreary rainy day/week, and baking some sunshine might be just the thing. Yours turned out great!

MaryAnne said...

Your sun bread looks great - I'll have to try that recipe out with my kids!

Miller Moments said...

I love this idea! I love to make homemade bread and what a great way to get my kids involved too. Thanks for the great story connection.

Amy said...

MMm. Homemade bread AND homemade butter. Nothing sounds better to me right now.
Adorable sun by the way.

Ticia said...

That sounds amazingly yummy

Jenny said...

How fun! I've never seen this book, I'll have to check our library for it.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I remember reading about this book at Almost Unschoolers and thinking whether I am brave enough to try a bread from scratch. But since I was fairly successful with pizza, maybe I'll give a book and a recipe a try. It looks like C was really into bread making, but he looks a little unsure about the taste :)

Sherri said...

You've done it again! This is the cutest sunshine bread....EVER!

Valerie @ Inner Child Fun said...

Wow!! You got the kids to make bread AND butter?? You are one smart mama!!!

Looks like so much fun!! We love homemade bread... it makes the house smell soooooo lovely!

Christianne @ Little Page Turners said...

Isn't it just delicious! Great job getting your son to knead. I felt like I'd had a workout by the time I was done! I am so impressed with the homemade butter, btw. :)

RedTedArt said...

Oh my this looks FABULOUS! How fun... my son would adore this. I think we will be baking some bread shortly!

Would you like to link up to Kids Get Crafty over at Red Ted Art? I now host it every Wednesday! This week's link is http://www.redtedart.com/?p=3056

Hope to "see" you soon!

Thanks

Maggy
Red Ted Art

H! I am Moitreyee Chowdhury. said...

Thank for the Sun bread information. Elisa Kleeven is my favorite too. I just mentioned her in my blog. I gave a link to your sun bread post in my blog. Please visit, and let me know what you think please.

Moitreyee Chowdhury
www.bluefroginthetub.blogspot.om