This is a super fun activity! Basically, you get to use bread dough like playdough, and who doesn’t want to do that? My mom used to do this with us, and she always called it bread bears, and we usually stuck with making bears, because, hey, they’re easy and cute, but really, imagination’s the limit with this one. 

I tried this with my one year old, and he made several blobs which I conglomerated into a butterfly. He had a blast messing around in the dough, and this is something I want to try with our little playgroup. I think the kids would have a grand old time making dough blobs together. 

While Alex was blobbing away, I tried my hand at a bread bunny (Easter’s on the horizon, you know!), and ended up with a weird looking creature. I guess I can’t get on any high horse about Alex’s blobs, because my dog attempt was interesting too… I’ll let you guess which one this was, dog or bunny:

Mom always used raisins for us to give our bears features, but I didn’t have any, so I subbed chocolate chips. You could really go to town with the decoration idea and use nuts, dried fruits, chocolate, cheese, whatever to decorate your creations. 

The biggest thing I learned this time is that the bread will RISE. Like, a lot! So if you want something recognizable, you have to take that into account. But as Alex and I proved, it doesn’t have to be recognizable to be a blast!

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Bread Bears

Fluffy dinner roll dough you can use to decorate and create fun bread animals!

Prep Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 50 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pkg yeast
• ¼ cup water
• ¾ cup milk
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup butter
• 3 1/4-3 ½ cups flour

Instructions

• Heat milk and water to 105°-110°.
• Add yeast and wait 5 minutes for yeast to proof.
• Mix in milk, sugar, salt, egg, butter, and flour. Dough should be slightly sticky.
• Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead for 3-5 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic.
• Place dough in greased bowl. Cover and allow to rise for 1 hour.
• Use dough to form bread bears. Place on greased or lined cookie sheet.
• Bake at 400° for 13-15 minutes.

 What would you turn your dough into? Leave a comment and let us know!

(If you have a picture that would be extremely cool!)