Getting bread the long way round!

Many of our schools took part in Blue Peter’s Mission Nutrition campaign last year, growing wheat from the seeds sent to us by Dove’s Farm, organic flour specialists.

The wheat seeds were sown by four of our Grow Organic school groups in the spring time and the young plants were lovingly cared for by the groups throughout the school term. Fortunately the wheat was ‘naturally’ kept well watered over the summer holidays for us.

By the time schools went back in autumn our wheat crops were looking fantastic and were almost ready for harvesting.

. . . . Some of the schools cut the wheat with scissors for health and safety . . .

. . . before proudly displaying it.  

Once harvested, the groups threshed the wheat to separate the grains from the stems . . .

. . . and then on a windy day winnowed it to let the chaff blow away, just leaving the whole grains.

Nothing was wasted; at one school they let the stems dry to become straw, which they used to make minibeast habitats.

Two of our groups took the grain up to Bracken Hall Countryside Centre to grind the wheat using a Bronze Age beehive quern which had been discovered on Baildon Moor. John Dallas, museum officer there, told us it would have taken people an hour to grind enough wheat to make a loaf of bread – it took us a bit longer than that, but everyone had a turn and we were very impressed with the flour we had at the end.

The groups then used their flour to bake their own bread rolls; some of them served them with soup made from fresh grown produce from their plots (see the tasty recipes on our recipe page), while others enjoyed them with Yorkshire cheese or honey.

Harder work than popping into the local baker or supermarket – but well worth it for the learning experience, the sense of achievement and the "absolutely sensational” results!

Some of the comments from the children:

"Brilliant bread and perfect pumpkin soup!"

"Grinding the wheat was hard but fun. Tasting the bread was fantastic."

"It was great seeing the wheat turn into flour!"

Other descriptions of the bread:

. . . fab . . . yummy . . . delectable . . . scrumptious . . . excellent