BP633: Kiwi Bread

Abstract

Reference: Case Study BP633
Classroom practice: Year 13
Title: Kiwi Bread
Duration: Four months
Overview: Wellington High School's Kiwi Bread unit has evolved over the past three years, with each class being given the challenge of creating a uniquely New Zealand bread. Students have practised bread making skills and investigated the potential for marketing Māori bread and bread made with purple Māori potato. Selected students have taken the unit further by investigating why bread turned green and attempting to reproduce it, and considering mass production of the product.

Focus Points:

• Establishing Food Technology within the school community
• Working with a client
• Working with and visiting outside experts
• Teacher progression in teaching Food Technology

Background

Marietjie Van Schalkwyk specialised in Home Economics at University in South Africa and taught the subject for 14 years. When she immigrated to New Zealand in 1997 and started teaching at Wellington High School she didn't feel comfortable with the idea of teaching 'Food Technology' (a term she had not heard of before) and focussed on Home Economics based units.

However, Marietjie is now an enthusiastic Food Technology advocate, finding it "a fascinating subject – exciting with lots of new ideas." She is keen to change students perceptions about food as a subject area to reflect the approach and aspirations of Food Technology – from "What are we cooking?" to "What are we doing? What are we learning?"

At Wellington High, Food Technology is a compulsory one term subject at Year 9, as are Design and Fabrics Technology and Graphic Design. Technology is offered in a range of option subjects in Years 10-13; Food Technology is taught at all levels, Practical Food and Nutrition at Year 11 and Hospitality at Years 12/13.

Marietjie started her Kiwi Bread unit in 2005 with the Year 13 Food Technology class. The 2006 class also worked on the unit, with some students following up what the first group had discovered. The unit continued to evolve and the 2007 Food Technology class worked on promoting the use of Māori potatoes. One student in that class opted to study in more detail the mass production of a uniquely New Zealand bread.

Pre-planning

The 2005 class was given the issue to develop a unique 'Kiwi' bread that reflected New Zealand culture or 'Kiwiana'. They began with researching and making paraoa (Māori bread) with rewena (potato leavening) before looking at different breads from a variety of cultures.

Rewena paraoa has only a small niche market in New Zealand; so Marietjie asked her class to develop a recipe suitable for mass production. Students also made a variation of rewena paraoa, using urenika , a variety of Māori potato.

Some students concentrated on the purple dough they achieved through using purple potato, and made purple-coloured bagels; while another based a recipe on Portuguese potato bread combined with rewena. Shape was another focus and bread was made formed as a koru, rugby ball and other New Zealand symbols, while other students looked at additional ingredients, such as sprinkling kawakawa herbs on top.

While trialling recipes one group had made rewena with urenika; when the bread was removed from the oven it was completely green. Everyone was very excited about this and tried to duplicate the recipe but couldn't. Neither students nor Marietjie knew what had caused the bread to go green. At one stage they put grated green apple into the starter and for a while thought that was causing the green bread. Time constraints meant that the class did not follow up this discovery. They wanted to use green bread for a bun in a hamburger competition, but had to use spinach to achieve the colour.

During the 2006 unit Marietjie challenged two students to investigate why the bread went green. After doing research on the internet and experimenting with making the bread, they visited Dr David Weatherburn, senior lecturer in chemistry at Victoria University, and talked to him about their work.

He told them of an article that appeared in 'New Scientist' magazine (July 2006) that discussed an incident where a teacher had done an experiment on red cabbage and egg white, when the egg whites turned green. This is a result of the presence of anthocyanins in the purple cabbage and the alkalinity of the egg white.

He then had the students look at their recipe and identify which ingredients were alkaline and acid. (He pointed them towards the baking soda, which works with the anthocyanins in the urenika; when the mixture is heated up the dough comes out green).

The boys worked hard to perfect the recipe and eventually succeeded. Marietjie recalls teaching in another room when the boys rushed in: "Miss, we did it!" This breakthrough laid the groundwork for other students to do further work on green bread in 2007.

Delivery

The Overall Project

2007 began with potatoes! The class focussed on investigating and comparing different potato products made with urenika. They trialled a variety of recipes such as fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad and potato gnocchi using urenika and other varieties of Māori potatoes.

The purpose of this was to get the students tasting and discussing the recipes and lead them into setting up focus groups to evaluate the results. These groups determined how consumers perceived purple coloured food and this also provided an opportunity to brainstorm people's reactions to it.

The class used their research to consider the advantages of urenika and how they could commercialise its use. They corresponded with Dr Nick Roskruge, (chairperson of the National Māori Vegetable Growers Collective and involved in a Massey University project considering the economic potential of Māori potatoes), about the cultivation and use of urenika.

They moved on to baking a variety of breads and practised using rewena and urenika. While developing their Kiwi Bread the students also had to investigate the possibility of mass producing it for a New Zealand or international market.

As their development progressed students prepared more bread and performed sensory attributes tests on samples, before preparing a batch of their final recipe for sensory evaluation.

Marietjie arranged with city store Commonsense Organics to be the class client, with the goal being to create a market for urenika. In contrast to the 2006 class, which had begun the year with no prior industry or community focus, the 2007 group was already experienced, having worked the previous year on In Flight meals, with Airport Catering as their client – see Student Showcase: Zoe.

Students first visited shops that sold Māori bread then developed a questionnaire to support their client's need. After doing their investigation they took their bread and some of the purple potatoes to Commonsense Organics, where they offered samples to customers. They found that everyone liked the bread, and that many customers knew of urenika, although most had not actually used it. In order to support the commercialisation process the students handed out recipes to the customers, to encourage them to buy and use urenika.

Marietjie had used a Futureintech Facilitator to arrange a visit from Food Technologist Jo Jenkins of Griffins. Jo talked to the class about the product development process and the different aspects to that, such as the concepts stage, equipment and prescribed foods (those requiring a certain percentage of an ingredient, for example ice cream).

Marietjie also took advantage of Massey University's Big Day Out which gave Food Technology students the opportunity to visit food companies and talk to Food Technologists. Her class went to Kapiti Fine Foods Ltd where they watched milk being processed and learnt about pathogen management.

A visit to Carousel was a popular choice – this company makes lollies, mostly supplying New Zealand chain stores. Staff discussed production with the students; including some of the constraints they face in developing new products, such as the need to use existing equipment for production.

Back working on their final product tests, students had to bulk produce their bread product, package and label it, then ask school staff and bakery owners to taste it and answer questions in a survey.

The class travelled to Parewahawaha Marae in Bulls, where Kaumatua (elders) talked to them about urenika cultivation and had them digging in the urenika plot. Kaumatua tasted samples of the students' rewena paraoa and gave feedback on how they perceived the taste, shape and texture of the bread. They said that the bread was less sweet than the paraoa baked at the marae and that a full loaf would be easier to cut than one made into three sections.

Individual project

As everyone worked through the Kiwi Bread unit one student, Amy Lim, took on an extra challenge by revisiting the green bread issue; taking the opportunity to work with Breadcraft (Wai) Ltd in Masterton develop a proposal for a production process for rewena paraoa, with commercialisation of this bread as her focus. She used this to work towards Achievement Standard 90792 (3.3).

After moving on from brief development to conceptual development Amy reviewed existing rewena recipes and experimented using different varieties of starches, which she then used in cooking rewena bread.

She compared the bakery technique with her own and conducted some food science experiments – raising agents, working with yeast, gluten development and Maillard Reaction .

Amy built a network of scientists willing to listen to her and support her project. She met with Dr Robert Lau, a Massey University scientist, who discussed leavening with her and recommended some experiments she could conduct on potato leavening. Amy also researched wild yeasts used in making sourdough bread, her aim being to find out the qualities of the various leavenings, how these could affect the bread and its manufacture, and especially the implications of using a living 'bug' within a factory under HACCP conditions.

Amy followed up the visit to Kapiti Fine Foods Ltd by using the knowledge she gained there and applying it to her process, swabbing her rewena so that it could be tested for any pathogens that might be present.

She also conducted shelf life and colour testing on her bread. The baked loaf was sliced, kept in plastic bags at room temperature and tested each day for fungi and mould growth over 14 days. Another loaf from the batch was stored and checked for colour deterioration each day for ten days; the result being that colour noticeably reduced overnight and by the fourth day was unacceptable.

As Amy continued working on her project she was still in contact with Breadcraft which went on to produce 25 kg of her green bread – a gratifying result for her production plan.

Outcomes

During the unit the class worked not only on cooking skills but self management, communication, lateral thinking and analysis of data. This project is a great example of how the different components of practice combine to make good technological practice.

Marietjie says that Food Technology is finding its feet within the school and student interest in taking the subject is growing, with an increase in numbers taking the subject in 2006 and more so in 2007.

Principal Prue Kelly is very supportive of the Technology department, and departmental successes are regularly displayed on the school website and intranet.

The Year 13 class is now timetabled on its own, rather than being taught in a joint class with Year 12, which Marietjie has found easier to do as she does not have to cater for two different levels at the same time.

Contact with people outside the school has helped excite and motivate the students – and working with real clients "amazes them." Marietjie comments that occasionally potential clients are reluctant to be involved due to time or workplace constraints, or, at times, doubt about working with high school students. However, as the general public perceive the advantages of working with schools, this should change.

What next?

Marietjie does not consider Kiwi Bread a 'finished' unit at this stage and expects more and ongoing changes. She has been contacted by various outsides showing an interest in the green bread project. Researchers at Massey University are currently working with purple Māori potatoes and have contacted Amy about her project.