Baking Bread With Willow

Today I thought it was time we baked the bread mix that Willow picked out in the shop. It is a cheddar cheese and onion bread mix by Wright's Baking which we got from Aldi. Willow loves anything that even has the word cheese in it so it's no surprise she picked this one. We have never baked bread together (from scratch or with a mix) so I thought an easy mix one was a nice easy way to start. At her age the fewer steps in baking or cooking the better really.

Willow trying to read the instructions

The instructions on this one were pretty easy, it was just a case of add lukewarm water and put it in a mixer. So of course Willow got the job of adding the water.

Willow adding water

Excuse the mess (toddler life). Willow loves using the red mixer which was kindly donated by her granny to us since we love to bake. We then let the mixer do its thing for a few minutes until it formed a nice dough.

The next part was the kneading which Willow loved of course. As you can see she had the time of her life with the dough and playing with flour. Then we had to let it rest for a bit before covering it in a damp tea towel to prove.

We don't have a proving drawer on our oven so we prove our bread in the boiler cupboard. It's always nice and warm in there and it works a treat if I'm honest.

Then we had a little lunch break while it proved, Willow couldn't believe her eyes when she saw how much it had puffed up in the tin.

Then we popped it in the oven for 30 mins and voila a loaf of cheese and onion bread. Easy peasy and good fun.