Small sourdough recipe for kids classroom activity

Baking Techniques
1

hi there,

Wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a simple small sourdough loaf recipe suitable for making with 4-5th graders. I am going to help them make their own starters one week and would love for them to make their own loaves as well. I’d need to be able to bake 10-20 loaves at once in a school kitchen so can’t use my go-to dutch oven method. Appreciate any suggestions!

2

I think it’d be a good idea to bake two loaves side by side. One with yeast and another identical overall recipe with starter keeping it simple [un-enriched]. For example…

Overall Recipe:

  • 500g bread flour
  • 300g - 350g water
  • 10g salt

Yeasted Version:

  • 500g bread flour
  • 300g - 350g water
  • 10g salt
  • 7g IDY

Sourdough Version:

  • 450g bread flour
  • 250g - 300g water
  • 10g salt
  • 100g starter @ 100% hydration (50g water + 50g flour)

This way they can see how the two recipes are in-fact the same except the first way has yeast and the second way has 100g starter - 50g water + 50g flour pre-fermented.

This way they can compare and contrast the methods. Perhaps the yeasted version one day and then the sourdough version the next day. They’ll be able to see the time and taste differences.

3

Thanks for the suggestion Abe! much appreciated.

4

What size pans are you going to use? Maybe the aluminum foil mini loaf pans?

If you have the dimensions on the pan, you can scale recipes with volume comparison as per this FAQ: