Klondike Cakes

ObjectiveBuilding upon the Amish Friendship Bread Starter lesson, students learn more about the history of yeast including the role it played in the California Gold Rush and the Klondike Gold Rush in Alaska. Continued with a discussion about food preservation while making Sourdough Pancakes.

CA Standards--Second Grade

  • 2.1 History--How things happened long ago, past and now
  • 2.4 Food Production/Consumption from long ago; preservation of food

CA Standards--Third Grade

Materials

Make the sourdough pancake starter the night before the lesson.

  • Sourdough starter: 2 c flour, 2 c warm water, 1 packet yeast
  • On the day of the lesson, add 4 c flour and 4 c water to your starter to have enough batter to make 3 batches.
  • Cook stove, griddle, measuring cups/spoons, syrup, plates, silverware, cooking spray

Ingredients: Starter from above, sugar, 1 egg per batch, vegetable oil, salt, baking soda

Procedures

  1. Show the Amish Friendship bread starter in it’s ziplock bag and review what is in the bag. (yeast, water, food (flour) and waste (CO2).
  2. Describe the origin of the word yeast. Start by stating the people come from different places but so do words. The word yeast comes from the word “gist” from Old English and from the Indo-European root “yes-” meaning foam, boil, or bubble.
  3. Ask if the kids have familiarity (thumbs up or thumbs down) with the words sourdough, Boudin, 49er or Gold Rush.
  4. There have been 4 major Gold Rushes in US history. There were 2 on the East Coast, in the early 1800’s. Students are probably most familiar with the California Gold Rush of 1848-49.
    • The San Francisco 49ers football team is named in recognition of California history and the Gold Rush. Their mascot is a prospector known as Sourdough Sam.
    • The Alaskan Gold Rush started in 1898. Prospectors followed the Yukon River from the ocean, to an area near the Alaska/Canadian border, near the Klondike River. Except for the late spring and summer, the area is cold and snowy. Even the soil freezes.
      • Ask students what the prospectors were called? Many will guess “98ers”. Tell them they were “sourdoughs” and ask for explanations.
  5. The Alaskan prospectors were called “Sourdoughs” because of the important role sourdough played in their daily lives. If they were prospecting, they didn’t have time to hunt and it was very cold much of the year. The prospectors wore a little pouch of sourdough starter around their necks or at their belts to keep the starter from freezing. Their sourdough (since it kept them from starving) was reportedly as important to them as their rifle (which they used to protect themselves and their claim). Once you add, flour and water to the starter, you have a meal.
  6. Make the pancakes. Each batch should yield about 8 cakes. Serve with syrup.
  7. While making the syrup, work on the activity on the worksheet and discuss how things can be preserved without using refrigeration or freezing.