Animal Breads

Last week, K and I were invited to a barbeque at my students' house. All three of my students and their moms would be there, as well as the sisters' dad. K was super stoked because he LOVES playing with the girls. They are always so sweet to him and totally treat him like a little brother - he's a lucky little guy! I wanted to bring something, but I really didn't know what to make. I settled on little animal dessert breads.

I used my bread-maker to start with a dough that is on the sweet side. Once it was ready to be rolled out, I cut the dough in half and then cut one of the halves into six equal-ish pieces. K was finishing his lunch as I was doing this and desperately wanted to help, but as we were taking these with us, I tried to take charge. I let him help me choose the animals to make. I started with a bunny, and then he suggested a bear, next was a Japanese cartoon character - Shimajiro, a mouse, and then he was about out of ideas. I opted for a pig and then he busted out with a giraffe. Uhhhh...really? I didn't want to turn him down, however, so the final bread was a giraffe.

With the other half of the dough, I used cookie cutters to cut out shapes. I wanted to see if I could make cute little breads for K's school lunches. Mini rocket peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sounded so cute to me! These ended up really cute, but I kept forgetting to take photos - you'll just have to trust me.

I baked all of the breads together and once the animals had cooled down, I used a chocolate pen to decorate them. They were all turning out so cute...then we got to the giraffe.

K was pretty pleased with it, but let's be honest, it looks ridiculous!

I took the breads to the barbeque and the girls loved them, as did the moms. I told them moms about the giraffe situation and they cracked up. Then the littlest girl came out and we asked her what the giraffe was and she answered with, "a cow!" The older sister, however, got it on her first try; we warned her to look carefully though.

K had such a fun day with the girls. They played in the yard,

K talked to the fish,

held the dog,

and sat on the horse while the older girls played Wii.