A Year of Bread

No, I'm not trying to "bust" your diet after just a few days! Rather the kids and I are embarking on a year long study of how to make bread.

A few months ago, I read an interesting idea about how to teach cooking as part of a homeschool curriculum. Basically, you pick one category, (ie. meat, veggies, salads, bread, etc.) and cook one thing from that catagory each month for a year. This appealed to me because it didn't involve fitting in another subject during the week, yet is an intentional way of teaching a valuable skill. It is a very long rang way of teaching, but hey, I plan on having my kids around at home for a while, so by the time they leave, we may have gone through each section of the cookbook together.

Our Art teacher last week had a persimmon tree that was just loaded. So we picked persimmons and made persimmon bread the other day. We talked about the difference between quick and yeast breads, what "creaming" means and an odd fact associated with baking with persimmons. In every recipe I've read you always dissolve the baking soda in the persimmon pulp before adding. Does anyone know why?

Here's the recipe we used. It turned out great!

Persimmon Nut Bread

6 Tablespoons Butter
1 cup Sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup persimmon pulp (Scoop out the flesh of the persimmon, then run through a food processor or blender.)
2 cups flour (I used 1/2 whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
1 cup chopped nuts (we used pecans)


Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Dissolve soda in persimmon pulp and add to creamed ingredients. Combine dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture. Add orange rind and nuts and mix well. Bake in loaf pan at 350 degrees for about 75 minutes (I always needed less, so check after 50-60 min.) or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool and slice.