Piggy bread

Piggy bread


Piggy breadPiggy bread


{Piggy bread}

Preparation time: 30 min plus resting time

Cooking time: 15 min

Yield: 16

Ingredients

  • 300 g strong wheat flour
  • 1 sachet (about 5g) instant dry yeast
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 level teaspoon salt
  • 40 g unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 egg (medium size, about 50 gr)
  • 175 ml whole milk
  • white non pareils and black edible pen for the eyes

Directions:

  1. Put the flour and yeast in a bowl and combine. Add the sugar and salt
  2. Pour the egg and milk into the bowl.
  3. Use a large spoon (or pastry scraper) to mix everything together.
  4. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead. You will feel the dough become elastic after kneading for about 5 minutes.
  5. Add the butter and knead the dough for 5-10 minutes or until the dough is soft, pliable, smooth and slightly shiny, almost satiny.
  6. Put the dough into a lightly floured bowl and cover with a cloth.
  7. Let the dough rise in a warm place until its size doubles (1 – 1 ½ hour depending on room temperature).
  8. Take the dough out of the bowl, deflate it by touching lightly.
  9. Cut the dough into 16 pieces, and roll each of them (excepting one we will use for the ears and noses) into a ball.
  10. Place them inside a cupcake case, and let them rest for 30 minutes.
  11. Preheat oven to 400º F (200 º C) and prepare small ears and noses with the remainig dough. Roll the dough, and with a round mini cookie cutter (or an apple corer) make cut small circles for the nose. With your hands, shape into ovals, and make the nose holes with a toothpick. Then make some more circles. Cut these in quarters for the ears
  12. Stick the ears and the nose to each ball using with brushing them with water
  13. Bake the piggy bread for about 10-15 minutes, until golden brown
  14. Let the breads cool, draw the eyes with a black edible pen, and attach them using some royal icing (see “notes” for alternatives)
NOTES:

  • If you do not have white non pareils,
    you might just draw the eyes with a black edible pen like I did here, or use some pepper, melted white and dark chocolate…
  • You might fill the bread with any filling of your choice, sweet or salty (do it before forming the balls)
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