Dough-slapping silliness

We have been crazy busy, and I was shocked today to realize that Isaac had never made bread with me before.  I had made some right before he came to live with us, and that lasted a little while, and we actually bought a loaf from the store (gasp!...I know...).

Actually, I have one more reason that it's becoming more and more important to me to make my own bread:  it's WAY cheaper, it tastes better, it's really healthy, AND it's SOY-FREE.  I looked at a ridiculous amount of labels before finally just settling on a loaf of bread that had soy oil, just further down the list.  Every.single.loaf had soy oil in it.

So...today we made bread.  I was a little torn with the idea - on one hand, it's crazy-hot here - a heat index of 110....on the other hand, it's a good day to do indoor activities.  I rationalized it by reminding myself that it would be an educational activity for Isaac, and plus, Dave loves fresh bread.

It was.....awesome.  He had SO much fun learning more about my stand mixer, and how to operate all the buttons and levers (don't worry, safety and fingers were discussed at length).

Once we had the dough all mixed and kneaded, I pulled it out of the bowl to shape it into a ball and grease the bowl for rising.  While shaping it into ball, it was kind of moist, so I was sort of "slapping" it into shape, rather than using a soft touch.

At first Isaac just sort of stared at me, speechless, then he just dissolved into giggles.

Then, when I told him he could slap it, the giggles were just about endless.

He slapped and giggled, laughed some more, slapped it from a different side, and laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool.

After we were done slapping the dough, he wanted to know if we could get a slapping attachment for my mixer.  I don't think KitchenAid makes those.....

Anyway, it's been fun to see how the smallest of things are so much fun to a little boy.  He loves to help in the kitchen, and it's been a fun way to work on fine motor skills (pouring slowly, dumping flour gently, stirring in different directions), math skills (counting how many cups of flour, adding and subtracting to see how many of things we need), and build our relationship (the giggling!).

For anyone interested in trying the bread recipe, you can see that post here (note, dough-slapping was not included in the instructions, so feel free to add it in!).