Flour and education

St Cuthbert's Primary School at Wigton, Cumbria, is the July 2009 winner of a Panasonic breadmaker and a supply of Carrs Breadmaker flour

CHILDREN from St Cuthbert's Primary School in Wigton refused to conform when it came to our special school bread making module!

Twenty-four Year 5 pupils ignored traditional ‘loaf-shaped’ bread and invented all manner of shapes.

“Their bold culinary efforts may not have resembled loaves as such but each one was unique and each one tasted absolutely delicious nonetheless,” said proud teacher Annette Creer.

Before designing their own loaves the children sampled different breads from all over the world.

“This gave them lots of ideas and inspiration for their own bread making experiments,” added Annette.

“The children used all the different types of Carr’s flours but they particularly liked working with the wholemeal variety.

“Kneading the dough and turning it into different shapes generated hours of fun in the classroom.”

The Carrs Breadmaker module was particularly useful as it enabled the school to embrace different aspects of the national curriculum, including science, design & technology and literacy.

“This has been a fantastic project thanks to Carrs Breadmaker and next year children in Year 4 are going to make their own pizza dough,” added Annette.

Caroline Dale, marketing manager for Carrs Breadmaker, said there was no reason why anyone had to stick to the traditional loaf-shaped bread.

“If you use your breadmaker to make the dough you can then shape it by hand to resemble anything you like before finishing it off in a traditional oven,” she said.

“Making bread IS good fun so I am pleased that the pupils of St Cuthbert enjoyed themselves so much.”

Below are some excerpts from the school childrens' portfolios from the Breadmaking Module (click to view an enlarged image):

Ian Griffiths, product manager at Panasonic, added:

“Using a breadmaker to make dough certainly takes away a lot of the hard work involved in kneading.

“St Cuthbert’s is another worthy winner and I look forward to the pupils sending me pictures of even more unusual shaped loaves in the months ahead!”

Each month throughout 2009
Panasonic and Carrs donated a breadmaker and a supply of flour to the school submitting the best portfolio of work.