I had so much fun making Lightning McQueen Race Car bread, that I couldn’t resist giving this bread art technique another try. This spooky, ghostly, eerie bread was pretty simple to do, delicious, and would be great fun for Halloween! Continue reading
Tag Archives: bread shaping
Lightning McQueen Race Car Bread
You may have heard of Panda Bread, the Japanese white bread made with matcha “green tea” powder and cocoa powder shaped to resemble a panda bear? If not, check out this Taste for Adventure, they have a great tutorial for this adorable looking bread. (It’s where I got the recipe for this too.)
Well, panda bear bread has been on my to do list for some time now, so what better time to do it than to give my son a special sandwich for his first day of preschool?
I can’t believe my baby is going to school, where did the time go? I’m getting teary eyed just thinking about it. To make his first packed lunch a special one, I wanted something really awesome, something he can show off to the other kids, maybe a conversation starter for him, or at the very least something that will make him smile.
So I told my 3 year old that I was going to make panda bread for him. He told me nooooooo, he didn’t want panda bear bread. He said he wanted Lightning McQueen bread. Why not panda bread? Because he wanted to be super fast of course! So, race car bread it was. It was time consuming, but fun, kind of like the adult equivalent of play dough time. I thought it came out pretty well, and even though its not quite clear that its Lightning McQueen, to my 3 year old its the coolest bread ever.
To see step by step instructions on how to make this bread and many other examples of bread art, check out my new eBook!
$5 Bread Art – Playing With Dough
ebook with instant download in PDF format
Recipe: Race Car Bread
Summary: variation of the popular panda bear bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 TBSP sugar
- 1 cup milk w/ 1 egg yolk (total or 1 cup together)
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 TBSP unsalted butter, softened
- 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
- red food coloring
- 4 tsp cocoa powder mixed in 2 tsp hot water
Instructions
- Heat the milk with the egg yolk in the microwave for 30 seconds.
- Add everything to the bread machine (except the cocoa powder and food coloring). Set and start the dough setting.
- When its over, pull out the dough, separate into 3 balls. The white and red I made equal, the black for the wheels was smaller. Use your judgment.
- Now mix the cocoa powder with water to become a paste. Knead into one dough ball. Knead for about 10 minutes, you can do this in your food mixer with the hook attachment or do by hand (your arms will hurt!). But knead until its evenly colored. Do this for the red ball as well.
- Cover all 3 balls with greased plastic wrap and also a kitchen towel for another 40 minutes until it rises again.
- now use your rolling pin and your imagination to create all the pieces. Follow my photos to see how I did mine. When finished, place into the bread loaf and cover again with the plastic wrap, kitchen towel. Place into microwave oven or in an enclosed area. Let rise for another hour.
- Preheat oven to 350. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool then Slice.
Preparation time: 3 hour(s)
Cooking time: 30 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 8
Sunflower Bread
When I saw this beautiful bread on Chef Tess’s blog, I had to try it for myself. I mean, what a creative way to bring major attention to your average dinner roll. I can just picture this at a summer picnic, or even a formal dinner party. Instead of passing a basket of rolls around, have each guest grab a petal!
I picked out a simple sweet bread recipe that I have used several times in the past with great success. For decorating, I used a turmeric powder to make the dye and crushed blackberries for the center. The blackberries were tasty on the sweet bread, but I think you could use chocolate chips, some variety of seeds, or maybe another dye made from cocoa powder for the center. If you have suggestions, please leave a comment, I would love to hear your ideas!
So the question is… was it a difficult process? I thought it would be but it was actually quite simple. Aside from the dough rising and baking time, it took about 20 minutes to form and “color” the flower, and I had a lot of fun doing it!
He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me!
Sunflower Bread Preparation Step 1
Sunflower Bread Preparation Step 2
Petal Dye
Sunflower Bread Prebaked
Sweet Bread Recipe
Taken from All Recipes
- 1 cup warm milk
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups bread flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
Instructions
- Combine the milk, sugar, and yeast in the bread machine. Let sit for 5-10 minutes until frothy. Add remaining ingredients and start machine on the “dough” setting.
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Place dough on floured surface. Roll it into a nice soft ball.
- Transfer to a greased baking sheet or baking stone, flatten into a circle.
- Place a small dish or cleaned out jar upside down in the center of the circle. I used a small ramekin.
- Lightly brush or mist dough with olive oil.
- Sprinkle flour over the exposed dough.
- Remove the dish or jar.
- Using a knife, cut your petals about 3/4 of an inch. Then Gently lift and slightly pull out the petal, then turn it to the side. Do this for all petals and adjust them lengthwise so they match.
- Next make the dye for the petals: crack one egg in a small dish, mix in turmeric (or curry powder) little by little until you get the color you like.
- Use a new paintbrush to brush on the dye for each petal.
- In a small dish, crush blackberries. Gently spoon them into the center.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.
Ducky Pop Tarts
There seems to be a huge home made pop tart trend out there in the blogosphere of foodies. When I saw that someone had made them with nutella, I was sold. My husband loves nutella… his favorite: a small spoonful on top vanilla ice cream. I was hoping these would be a nice surprise for him to take on the train to work.
Poptart Cutouts
Just Baked
So I sought out for a good recipe… there are tons out there. But I settled for one on the healthier side since, well, I’m days shy of having baby #2 and my weight gain has been kind of out of control! What with all the donuts, cookies, and cake I have been making lately for the blog… who can blame me?
This recipe uses 100% whole wheat flour, yogurt, butter, and salt. Thats all, pretty simple really. But it was absolutely disgusting. To describe how yucky these duckys were, there are still 2 sitting on the counter in my house and I made them 4 days ago… AND they have frosting on them, AND sprinkles, AND they are filled with nutella!
On a brighter note, they look awfully cute and the frosting was delicious, I made it with powdered sugar whipped up with a little milk (add sparingly until you get the right consistency). Then I actually used turmeric powder to get the yellow color! I couldn’t taste the turmeric, it was a surprisingly good choice, one that I will do again since I understand turmeric has some pretty awesome health benefits.
