Great Harvest Bread Company

Mrs. Debbie planned our Parents as Teachers class today. It was on baking! We got to take a tour behind the scenes at Great Harvest Bread Company which is just down the street from our house. The store is owned by Shelley and Craig. We were lucky to get Mrs. Shelley for our tour guide this morning. At Great Harvest, they grind their own wheat daily right there in the store. Shelley showed us a real stalk of wheat and explained its parts. She explained how they use only freshly ground flour that they mill from wheat everyday right there in the store. We got to see the mill and the large bins of freshly ground wheat. Next, we saw the giant mixer that they use and the huge dough hook that goes with it. Nicholas liked this part because he loves our mixer at home and this one looked a lot like it, just much, much bigger! We saw dough that was just starting to rise and then also saw dough that had doubled in size. We watched them weigh the dough for baking. Then we met Mr. Craig, baker extrodinaire. The oven they use is huge. It can bake 200 loaves of bread at a time! After the tour, we all got to taste some freshly baked bread and each child also got a special cookie. They were also given seed packets to grow their own wheat grass garden as well as a coloring sheet that they can bring back to the store for another free cookie.

Next we went to Mrs. Debbie and Diana's house to do some baking of our own. The children made pizza snacks and watched them bake in the oven. They also got to decorate cupcakes. Then there was a lot of time spent playing with all of Diana's cool toys. What a fun morning!