Last January I had the pleasure of working with a group of 2-3 year old children in a Level T (Infant Toddler) Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium in Kansas City. My task was to present how to make bread. As you can imagine the attention span of a 2-3 year old is very short. I didn't want to do a leavened bread due to the time it takes to proof the yeast. We were already short on time, so I presented how to make unleavened bread.
This was their result. I can't eat wheat, but those that could said they were chewy on the inside and a little crispy (in a good way) on the outside.
I had recently started following an archaeological baker. She had posted about unleavened bread found in the ruins of Pompeii in a bathhouse, of all places. With analysis and research, she provided the recipe. This was the recipe we used with the toddlers. Families of toddlers might want to give this a try for Holy Thursday!
You can read the whole LONG article here. This is the recipe we used:
Herculaneum Bath Bread
7 1/3 c. whole wheat flour
3 c. warm water
1 tsp. salt
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. You combine all the ingredients and knead for 15 minutes (tag team if you need to). The longer you knead, the chewier the bread will become.
Divide the dough into 9 pieces. Roll each piece into a nice round ball. Sprinkle whole wheat flour or semolina flour on your work surface. Flatten each piece with your hand. If you have a cookie press or butter press, you could make an impression in the dough. Carefully place the flattened round onto lightly oiled sheet pan a few centimeters apart. They won't rise or spread very much.
Bake 30 minutes. Enjoy with hummus, or olive oil!
NOTE: The 2-3 year olds did not knead the dough for 15 minutes, LOL. They did it for about 3 minutes. We divided the dough, let them press it out and we put their initials on each round. They enjoyed them at snack time. There was plenty of dough left to make more, which we shared with other atria.
