Matzah Bread a la The Little Red Hen

There's a very long back story to go with this post. I started to write it, but it was so long, I didn't even want to read it. Basically, it has to do with needing some, or unleavened bread, for an object lesson to go along with a Sunday School class for 5th and 6th graders, but being in a hurry (appropriate I think), and not being able to find any recipes, that didn't include eggs, and so settling on this one (click the link to view the recipe), which is very yummy, but wanting something a little more "official" to use in our own Passover study, before Easter, and finding this book at the library.

Phew!

Anyway, since we had communion today, at church, and the little ones wanted to know why it was little, flat "crackers" and "juice", and since we're supposed to have both sets of grandparents visiting, a baptism, and a birthday the week of Passover/Easter, and it was snowing too hard to go out for the nest drive, I had planned for this afternoon, I figured why not pull out the book, and make some matzah bread? And really, this is the short version of this post.

Leslie Kimmelman's The Little Red Hen and The Passover Matzah, follows the usual formula of the Little Red Hen story, but sets it in a Jewish farmyard, right before Passover. It's smattered with Yiddish (with a glossary at the back), and a fair amount of Passover tradition, and regulations, and has a flour and water recipe for matzah bread at the back, that has to be completely baked within 18 minutes of the water touching the flour.

I prepared the (non-kosher) ingredients...

...then set the timer, while the girls prepared to mix the flour and water.

They chanted, "Quickly, quickly, quickly," a refrain from the story, while I mixed, kneaded, and rolled out the dough, and then they stabbed it gleefully with forks, before we popped it in the oven. It was not a thing of beauty...

...and quite frankly, even served with honey, was not very tasty...

...but we managed to make it within the 18 minute time frame, and learned a little more about the traditions surrounding Passover, in the process, so no kvetching here!

It's great to be a homeschooler.