On St. Patrick's Day we had a wonderfu
l day. We started in Teacher Michelle's room making hats with big clovers on them. Next we ran around outside
until we were tired. Then we came in and made Irish bread with the help of Vicky, Madison's mother. It was so much fun measuring, mixing, measuring, mixing and then we got to roll, roll, roll. We shaped our rolls into hearts and put them together into 3 leaf clovers. Then we decorated them with sugar and cinnamon and baked them in the oven. We ate them after lunch and they were yummy!!! We also played with ma
gic s
and and decorated the classroom with 3 leaf clovers and window decorations. It was a very fun day!"Irish" Bread Sticks
2 cups warm water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon or packet active dry yeast
1 Tablespoon salt
2 Tablespoons Olive oil or butter, barely melted (optional)
2 egg whites, beaten until stiff
1 cup whole wheat flour
5 to 5 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 egg beaten with 2 teaspoons water (optional, for wash)
pretzel salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, herb mixture, sugar, (optional, to sprinkle on top)
Mixing: Pour the water into a large mixing bowl. Add and dissolve the sugar and yeast. Mix in the olive oil or butter then beaten egg whites. Add the whole wheat flour and then the salt. Stir in the balance of the flour until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Kneading: Turn out onto well-floured board and knead until the dough is smooth and springy. Divide the dough in half and give it a 10-minute rest to relax the gluten., (You can use this dough to make one large loaf of bread and one batch of bread sticks or you can make 2 batches of bread sticks, one to eat and one to freeze.)
Shaping: Cut one half of the odugh into 16 equal pieces. Roll eachpiece into a rope 18 inches long. If you want long bread stickes, leavem at they are or cut them in halves or thirds for a variety of lengths. If you make them a bit fatter than usual, they'll be chewy as well as crunchy. Repeat with the remaining dough. We too each peach and then divided it into four pieces. We made small thin ropes into 3 heart shapes and connected them at the tips. The fouth piece became the stem of our 3 leaf clover.
Topping & Baking: Place these on lightly greased baking sheets, cover and let rest for 15 to 20 minutes while you preheat your oven to 450 degrees. For simple bread sticks, you can brush the tops with cold water just before they go in the oven and bake as is. Or brush them with the egg wash and sprinkle on the pretzel salt or whatever inspires you. There are a variety of herb and seed mixtures that are excellent salt substitutes. We also used cinnamon which was quite yummy.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
