Breads are the items I give the most reverence to in an Easter Basket. Paska bread was the one food item in our Easter basket that was only around at Easter, and I've been pretty nervous to attempt making one. So I thought I would ease my way into bread making for Easter with some cute little bread birds. I remember these enchanting little creatures being in my Easter basket when I was a kid, one of our aunts gave them to us as an Easter gift, and we would freeze them for reuse year after year.
The thing about your everyday western style bread is that it isn't made to be shaped into detailed intracate objects. It is created to rise and have a soft fluffy texture. I have a vivid memory of biting into a bread bird when I was a kid and it was a pretty dry experience.... I'm pretty sure I spit it out and didn't eat it. A good recipe for making bread birds I'm learning is one that is more decorative and less focused on texture and taste.
Have you ever heard of the Bunny Bun? The Bunny Bun is a recipe from a pupular photo sharing site that "teaches" you how to make delightful bread bunnies. In reality this is what happens when you follow the instructions.
The thing about your everyday western style bread is that it isn't made to be shaped into detailed intracate objects. It is created to rise and have a soft fluffy texture. I have a vivid memory of biting into a bread bird when I was a kid and it was a pretty dry experience.... I'm pretty sure I spit it out and didn't eat it. A good recipe for making bread birds I'm learning is one that is more decorative and less focused on texture and taste.
Have you ever heard of the Bunny Bun? The Bunny Bun is a recipe from a pupular photo sharing site that "teaches" you how to make delightful bread bunnies. In reality this is what happens when you follow the instructions.
-The Recipe Everyone wants (Pintrest) - What the recipe actually makes (Pintrosity)
The bunnies above, in all their cuteness, are actually Chinese cookies that are baked in a cookie mold shaped specially to produce them. Cookie dough (depending to a degree on the recipe) tends not to rise as much a bread and hold its shape better. For example German Springerle cookies are capable of holding highly detailed shapes.
-Image Credit Farmhouse Gardens
Bread can be detailed as well but it is a matter of getting a recipe that is very very specific to shaping and not rising. Anyone who has ever seen a korovai (Ukrainian: коровай, Polish: korowaj) at a Ukrainian wedding. Knows just how detailed Ukrainian bread can get, but you also notice the ornamental elements of the bread are made using a different type of bread than the edible parts. See below photo.
-Image credit Interesting Fact about Ukraine
While bread birds and Paska are not
quite this advanced, they both require a little shaping of the bread for
dramatic and decorative flare. I had a heck of a time finding a recipe for any
kind of bread that looked like it would shape into anything. I decided to kind
of wing it using a modified one. I cut the yeast to half the suggested and
subbed the honey for sugar in hopes of making the dough dry.
The only actual recipe I found for
actual bread birds that looked like they would work was in a different
language, and Google Translate wasn`t enough of a help to get me through it. In
the end while I am not entirely happy with my result what I can say is these
taste wonderful... unlike the traditional ones so we ate most of the birds that
looked like they had awful genetic defects, which was hilarious and delicious.
Here is the image of what I was going for and what I actually got.
-Image credit dimitranas My Bread Bird 2014
Here is the actual method of creating a bread bird. Sadly you are on your own for the recipe unless you want to make 24 birds and get about 3 of them that just by chance turn out alright. The methhod for shaping them isn`t as complicated as you might first think.
My Dough and tray of bread birds
-Image Credit Pintrest for the steps of making a bird (no source found)
For a video on how to shape them visit here:
What have I learned from this experience.
1. Pintrest is the worst place on the internet to get bread recipies this is about my 4th attempt using pintrest to make bread and so far I`m not impressed.
2. I`m pretty sure the eyes are bits of rasins not cloves as shown in many tutorials. I found the cloves difficult to push into the dough and they also misshaped the head of the bird. If you do insist on using cloves push them in, after the bread is baked, because even when you do place the cloves in the dough before cooking the bread rises and it`s almost impossible to get eyes lined up where they should be.
3. The shaping method is easy and works very well be agressive with your cuts on the tail or the bread will just rise up so the tail becomes a lump even if you just scored it.
If I have time I might try this again with a different recipe.I have also heard pillsbury bread sticks will work. Till then enjoy these hilarious fail shots of some of the birds that turned out the worst.
My other Bread birds meet fail bird and Quasimodo Hunch Back Bird
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