May 2, 2010 - 4:35pm
Bread sculptures
Little man has been asking to make bread sculptures so I am going to just keep the pictures here. We've made a crab bread two day ago and his monster bread yesterday. Today, I made an alligator bread, stuffed with ham and cheese. This one is a bit different than the other two because this is a unbleached sourdough alligator. Took about 6 hours to rise before baking. Very fun to make.
Al
Share
Comments
hee! Our 5 year old wants to know how you made the teeth!
Haha, the teeth are slivered almonds. I have used long grain rice and kamut in the past but we couldn't eat those. Almonds worked out a lot better.
Al
i watched a baker on utube braid a 6' long gaitor. this is much nicer, not to mention the ham & cheese and my four yr,old loves it. trouble maker:)
What a great looking gator. I would love to see the dough cut-outs before cooking..Little Man has inherited your artistic talents...just gorgeous!
Sylvia
Let's see some shots before baking. Do you just think them up and make them, or do you have a book?
Greg R
Little man took the "remains" of the alligator to school for lunch today :-) so I probably will be making more bread sculptures this week. I will try to remember taking pictures of the SD starter and dough. It actually looked a lot more like an alligator before baking. The whole thing shrunk in the oven and Mr. Gator got a nice tan but became fatter and shorter! LOL
Grey, I don't have a book. Sometimes I copy someone's ideas; other times I come up with my own's. I already have a new one in mind, a silly cat. Not sure if it will work, will know when I finally try it.
Al
Those are so beautiful gators - Al. This is a piece of art....
Thanks Jenny and Diah!
Diah, I have done something else that had been posted somewhere here on the TFL. Here are the crab bread I made and the monster bread little man made:
Little man made this teddy bear for Easter Sunday
Some funny bread we made last year: Santa, T-Rex, Turtle, and Mr. Flabby Frog
And this one was a failed sourdough but was made it into Uncle Freddy anyway:
The frog bread idea I got it from here:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/frogbread
A bucket full of fun!
Al
I have promised to make another alligator and to take pictures before baking. Here they are. Little man insisted on making a scary one so I put an arm in this guy's mouth. Hopefully it's scary enough for him. :-)
A picture of my very active unbleached starter
How the starter looked in the jar:
Finished shaping Mr. Gator
A closer look of the scary guy:
Will see how much fatter and shorter Mr. Gator will turn out after baking! :-)
Al
up like he ate the whole thing...love the teeth too! Thanks for posting the before bake photos.
Sylvia
We loved the teeth too! We ate them first when Mr. Gator first came out of the oven! :-)
Al
I mean, baked! :-)
Al
Diah, the frog bread blog belongs to a different poster; the recipe is not mine. Every bread sculpture I posted here is my original except the frog bread. I have to give credit where credit is due.
Regarding substituting buttermilk for milk, I don't think it will be a problem. There may be a subtle change in flavor but I doubt it will be too noticeable. Another purpose of adding milk into the dough is to create a softer crumb. I suppose any milk will do just fine. Hope this helps.
Al
Al thanks for posting the prebake pictures. You really have it down. I am guessing the proofing is critical as you can't slash and you don't want it to rip open. Keep sharing your works of art they make me smile.
You're right about proofing. Slashing after final proof definitely risk tearing the "skin". I have to shape and sculpt everything before final proof. Plus, if over proof the sculpture won't be able to hold up its shape. I will try to come up with something else next time. It's been fun. :-)
Al
I made a loaf of SD sesame bread today. I purposefully made the dough extra large in order to save some for bread sculptures. The extra was used to make four small fish, stuffed and decorated with old cheddar cheese. Hubby and little man each ate one fish at dinner. I saved the last two for little man's school snack tomorrow.
Before baking:
Out from the oven:
Al
I feel so daft! I can't find the recipe for the starter and was this the sour dough recipe.
I am a lil confused in the directions, you state to add the water, starter and let set for 18 hours until the sponge doubles in size. Is this considered a new sponge then? I already have a sponge that I purchased in San Fran so I want to use that and just need to make sure of the directions. Sorry if that's confusing.
Thank you
Hey schuggar wow this has been a very long time and I've completely forgotten about this blog. My little man is not so little anymore and if seeing these pictures he would consider embarrassing. LOL
Anyways, your question about the starter... I usually keep my starter in the fridge until I need it. The night before baking, I take the starter out, add flour and water then let it sit for 12 - 18 hours, depends on how active the starter is. The next morning, I have a "sponge". You definitely can use your own starter and recipe. The purpose of this blog is to share ideas on what we can sculpt a dough into. You can use your own SD bread recipe even a dough with commercial yeast.
My SD starter is pretty forgiving so I don't even measure anything, just scoop and dump and let it sit overnight. In your case, you may want to find out how active your starter is and the correct water/flour/starter ratio. Once you have a bread dough that's when the fun begins.