Whimsical Weekend

A week ago, Sis and I spent the afternoon with flour up to our elbows. We were making Whimsy Bread at a Girl Scout event. What is Whimsy Bread? Whatever you want it to be! Sis formed her ball of dough into a bunny. I made mine into a teddy bear. We handed them over to the Scouts in the kitchen, who gave the dough an egg wash and a dusting of kosher salt before baking.

Meanwhile, we sang a few songs ("Baby Shark" and "I Said a Boom Chicka Boom" anyone?) and then made a SWAP (described as "Something With A Pin," a craft which you sometime trade at SWAP meets)--a braided rope looped as a pretzel, covered in glitter "salt," and, you guessed it, stuck with a pin.

By then, the dough was bread and we had a snack with lemonade. Sis was suspicious of the salt and probably would've preferred hers salt-free. But she seemed happy, even if the bunny shape, well, merged (morphed?) somewhat in the oven.

But they didn't give us the recipe, saying it was a Girl Scout secret!!!! Harumphf. It was vaguely pretzel-like, given the salt. The allergen list merely said salt, yeast, flour, water, and egg. No oil or milk or butter or sugar. And so, starting from there, I researched shaped breads online. Frog bread. Teddy Bear bread. Turtle bread. Great shapes, but most of the recipes had milk in them. Until I found . . .

The Alligator.

The site says it's a straightforward Italian bread. And I'm guessing you could use any Italian bread recipe. I don't really have one of those yet, so I'll be trying The Alligator.

(Note to family: All I can hear is "alligator gets the baby!")

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UPDATE:  A secret source tells me this is the recipe:

Whimsy Bread Recipe

4 c. flour

1.5 c. water

1 TBS yeast

1 TBS sugar

10 minutes - not sure the temp. I think 400