Les Petits Chefs make bread, butter and jam!

We’re back! That’s right, since school is back in session, so are Les Petits Chefs! We’ve got a great group of boys this year, a few new to the school, some who are graduating from two years of Cooking Basics and some who have been in cooking club already for a couple of years. Having “return customers” certainly keeps us on our toes thinking up new recipes and skills/techniques to teach but it’s also great for the “old boys” to be able to teach the new boys some of what they have already learned. There’s no better way to solidify one’s skills in any area than to teach someone else how to do something!

For our first session, I chose not one but three recipes to work on. Ambitious? Of course but that’s what we do in cooking club – raise the bar high, expect a lot and the boys will always rise to the challenge. The recipes I chose are what I would consider fundamentals – basic recipes that it’s good to be familiar with – bread, butter and jam. Since we only have an hour, a couple of those elements are obviously challenging – bread and jam. But over the summer I discovered a really easy, fast-to-make brown soda bread that I thought might work well as bread rolls (made in muffin cups) and a bit of Googling discovered a “quick jam” recipe that I thought might work.

Though the boys were initially a little sad that we weren’t making muffins or cupcakes (I let them guess the recipes from the ingredients set out), they were excited at the prospect of making bread. I personally love how not one boy thought it was a crazy thing that we were even attempting not just bread but two other recipes in the hour (though some of the parents thought I was “courageous”!).

We practiced measuring ingredients with cups and teaspoons…

and cracking eggs (everyone’s favourite task!)

And scooping the batter into even-sized portions so the rolls would bake evenly…

Then we divided into groups to make the butter and jam whilst the rolls were baking…

The jam is a super easy recipe (and we even forgot the lemon juice and it turned out ok!) – basically you chop the strawberries either in a food processor or by hand then cook down with some sugar.

It turns out to be a runnier jam that you might be used to but firms up (apparently – there was none leftover for me!) in the fridge. It was delicious just cooked and slightly cooled on the warm rolls though…

The butter was something I have never made but always wanted to so I figured who better to make this with than the boys. It was actually much more interesting than it sounds to watch cream whipping into butter – there were definitely different stages it went through… From liquid to whipped, to really thick whipped to separated fat and liquid then ….. butter…

Then it was “reveal time” –  and the rolls were baked…

And check out the crumb on the bread rolls!

Perfect, right?

Meanwhile, our jams were being jarred up in tiny spice jars – just enough for the two rolls each boy was taking home…

Not pictured here are our little butter packets – I had imagined they would look like those individual butter pats you see in hotel breakfast buffets. I can’t say they looked that neat but they got packed up and put in hands/ Tupperwares and were heading on out the door on time at just over 60 minutes for the session from start to finish!

As we cleaned up, Miss Carter and I had a little sneaky taste of some of the leftovers…

before the rest was distributed amongst my colleagues….

I’d say this was a huge success and am so pleased to have shown the boys how easy some really basic foods are to make from scratch!

You can get the recipe for quick strawberry jam here and the recipe for the homemade butter here.

 

The brown soda bread recipe comes from Kevin Dundon’s Modern Irish Food which you can buy on Amazon, Amazon Canada or for free worldwide shipping on The Book Depository.

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Please note: The product links from Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links. If you click on these links and purchase the product I have linked to or any other product, I will receive a small percentage of the sale price.

 

 

 

Canadians – win a copy of Canadian Living’s Dinner in 30 Minutes or Less. Closes Wednesday September 17th 6pm EST. Details here.