My son is really into helping me make bread lately and I want to keep the momentum going. Problem is he loses interest when he has to wait 4+ hours for proofing. Should I try a different recipe or just embrace the fact that he'll be doing other stuff while we wait? Also anyone have good kid-friendly sourdough recipes?
The patience thing is real. We tried this and it drove me nuts waiting for bulk fermentation. But then I realized I was missing the whole point. Now I just sit with him and we watch it rise together between his other activities. Made it way less stressful when I stopped trying to rush the process.
8 is the perfect age for this honestly. My kid is 7 and we started doing the same thing. Pro tip: let him mess with the starter even if it's not perfect. Kids don't care about a perfect crumb structure, they just want to see the magic happen. We keep a small jar of starter just for him now.
Honestly the best part is when they pull the loaf out of the Dutch oven. My 8yo still talks about the first time she did that. Don't sweat the technical stuff too much at that age, just keep it fun and he'll remember this forever.
One thing that helped us: temperature. If your kitchen is cold, bulk fermentation takes forever and kills the momentum. We started doing our bakes when the kitchen is warmest and he's home and it's been a game changer.
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What's your timeline looking like? If he's into it, you could do weekend bakes together and have him track it in a notebook with drawings. My son started doing that and now he's actually learning about fermentation without realizing it.