Bread in a Bag
Wit-Bit
Yeast is a single celled fungus that is used to make breads, pretzels, cakes, and much more!
In this post, I will be explaining how to make bread in a bag! This is a fun experiment that parents can do with their children. This experiment will explain to children how yeast works. Here is what you’ll need: 3 cups of flour (separated), 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar, .25oz of yeast, 1 cup of warm water, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 and ½ teaspoons of salt, and butter. Additionally, you’ll need a loaf pan, parchment paper, butter, and ziploc bag.
First, put 1 cup of flour, the yeast, sugar and warm water into the ziploc bag. It might help to wrap the top of the bag around a bowl, but you can hold the bag as your children add the ingredients in. I did not have a ziploc that wrapped around any of my bowls, so I just held the bag open!
Next, let the air out of the bag and seal it. With their hands, have your kids press and move the mixture around from outside of the bag. This causes the ingredients to mix together. The yeast is actually eating the flour here! So, the yeast is eating the sugar that’s in the flour. If you notice that there are clumps of flour or yeast stuck in one area, I recommend opening the bag, taking a spoon, and mixing that into the batter. If so, make sure to let the air out of the bag and seal it after you are done. Then, leave the bag alone for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, look at the bag and you should see some bubbles in the mixture. These are carbon dioxide bubbles! These bubbles are burped out due to the yeast eating the flour.
Now, open the bag and put the following into the mixture: 1 cup of flour, the olive oil, and salt. Seal the bag and mix again. Just like before, if needed, open the bag and make sure all the ingredients are mixed well. Next, add the final cup of flour. Seal the bag and mix it again! Now, we knead the dough!
Put a piece of parchment paper on your counter and sprinkle some flour onto it. Take the dough out and put it onto the parchment paper. I recommend putting flour on your hands too! My dough ended up being quite sticky and when I put flour on my hands, it was easier to take the dough out of the bag. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. This step is crucial because we are popping the carbon dioxide bubbles. Also, kneading is required so that your bread turns out springy and soft!
Take some plastic wrap and loosely put it around the dough. We will let the dough rest for 30 minutes, giving it enough time to expand in size. Make sure that the dough is in a warm environment to help this process as well. At this point, I decided to preheat my oven to 375° fahrenheit during the 30 minutes, so that my kitchen warmed up!
Take some butter and grease your loaf pan. Parental supervision/help is required for the next steps!! Put your dough into the pan and use oven mitts to place it in your oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, carefully take your pan out of the oven with oven mitts, and place it on the counter to cool. Now your bread is done! I decided to cut my bread and spread some butter on the slices, but you can spread some jam on it as well.
Now, you and your children have made bread in a bag, and learned about how yeast works! Check us out on TikTok and Instagram for more content, and check out our other blog posts posted on stemchef.com for more fun food based experiments!
- Roshnee Gulati