This is an easy bread recipe for kids that is fun to use as an edible modeling dough to create faces, animals, and other shapes. Eat your creations for snack or dinner!
I love baking breads and desserts and fun stuff. Which is kinda funny (or not so funny) since I am generally uninspired to get dinner on the table. But tasty, bready, sweet things — yes.
So this activity is right up my alley! Use my easy bread recipe (see recipe at the bottom of the post) or use uncooked pizza dough from the grocery store to make all kinds of fun shapes, and then bake for a tasty treat!
Easy Bread Recipe for Kids
MATERIALS
- Bread dough (see recipe at the end of the post, or use uncooked pizza dough)
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons water
- Pastry brush
- Cookie sheet
- Parchment paper (optional)
Time needed: 4 hours.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Make bread dough creations
Form the bread dough into faces, animals, suns, snails, and other fun shapes.
- Let rise
Place your bread dough creations on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or greased) and let them rise until doubled in size (30 minutes or so).
- Prep bread for baking
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Make an egg wash by whisking together the egg and water. Brush the tops of the bread shapes with the egg wash.
- Bake!
Place your bread shapes in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. The smaller shapes might need less time and the larger ones might need more time. Let cool and enjoy!
By the way, the reason I call this Teddy Bear Bread is because when I first made it with my girls, I made bears, just like I used to as a child from a cookbook I had. It was so fun to make, and brought back special memories for me!
Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a whole bunch of these fun bread shapes for a little kiddo tea party?!
How to Make Teddy Bear Bread
- Prep Time: 3 hours
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes
- Category: Baking
Description
This bread dough is easy to make! Use it to shape fun bread dough faces, animals, and more!
Ingredients
1.5 cups warm water (about 110–130 degrees Fahrenheit)
1 packet active dry yeast
1–3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 cups all purpose flour or bread flour
Instructions
1. Mix the warm water, yeast, and honey in a large bowl. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
2. Stir in half of the flour to the yeast mixture, then let it rest for 30 minutes.
3. Mix in the salt, oil, and rest of the flour.
4. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for five minutes. Add a little more flour if the dough is too sticky.
5. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise until doubled in size (about 2 hours).
6. Punch the dough down, then divide it into small balls and pieces to use it to make bread dough creations.
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18 Comments
cygnetsmall
July 15, 2008 at 5:31 amThose are so cute! We made some pretzels a while back but i didn’t even think about making cute shapes (and pretzels don’t puff up quite like this either). I’m totally with you on the cooking dinner vs. baking sweets, too. :)
lazytoadfarm
July 15, 2008 at 6:48 amVery cute! Do you have any suggestions for a summer, birthday party for 1 year old twins??
Jessica
July 15, 2008 at 7:27 amThose look yummy! I love the cute little bear. Isn’t it fun how just changing the shape of the food seems to make it extra special. My kids love it when I made their panckes into shapes. :)
I think a bunch of teddy bear breads for a kiddie tea party is a great idea!
Angel Funk
July 15, 2008 at 7:59 amHave you seen the book “Sun Bread” ? It is a cute story and has a recipe for sun bread on the back page. I love the teddy bears!
https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Bread-Elisa-Kleven/dp/0142400734/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1216137490sr=8-1
Shawn
July 15, 2008 at 10:58 amI love the sun! I made big teddy bear breads for Christmas every year for several years as a child. i was just thinking about that recently. It’s hard to cook with twin toddlers. We can only do basics right now … but this might be extra fun to do after our vacation. did you get that email I sent you about the gardens in Asheville?
Julie Liddle (ART IN HAND)
July 15, 2008 at 12:59 pmHere’s another cool idea (although not very healthful, and quite honestly, more fun-looking than good eating, in my opinion), but also really fun to make…
Sort hard candies like jolly ranchers or life savers by color. Put them in baggies then smash ’em up with a mallet. Then, use sugar-cookie dough (home-made or in a tube from the grocery store) and make shapes with cut-outs in them and fill the spaces with the colored candies. Bake, and voila…stained glass cookies! They make great ornaments/decorations too, if you don’t want to eat them. The sorting and smashing part is great fun for little ones. Here’s a link https://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=29625
MaryAnn Kohl
July 15, 2008 at 3:32 pmI LOVE LOVE LOVE that you use my books! Thank you. My true mission in life is to bring creativity and joy to children. Thanks to you, my dream continues. Thank you.
MaryAnn Kohl
Annette
July 15, 2008 at 4:34 pmI love the first picture! It reminds me of one of my children’s favorite books, Sun Bread by Elisa Klevin.
Lauren
July 16, 2008 at 1:17 amWhat a sweet idea!
I really look forward to doing this someday with my daughter.
Thanks for the post.
amyirony
July 16, 2008 at 5:03 pmMy 4 yo daughter and I did this today, inspired by your post — and also The Night Kitchen — this morning she was pretending the down comforter was a pile of dough and she was shaping it into Mickey’s plane. So her shapes included an ice cream cone, a self-portrait with bow, and a snowman. I attempted to recreate Mickey’s WWI fighter jet, which, after baking, she pronounced a dog (I think her description was more accurate!)
Anyway, we had lots of fun and she couldn’t wait to show off our creations to daddy and eat her “ice cream cone cookie” with dinner!
Vanessa
July 16, 2008 at 8:14 pmMy Mom made these teddy bears with us a lot! I forgot about them untilnow, she also had us paint them somehow before we maked them I think it was just water and food coloring. so fun!
wesleyjeanne
July 16, 2008 at 6:35 pmThis looks fun and yummy! Thanks for the inspiration.
Patricia
July 21, 2008 at 5:08 pmHow cute! Definitely on my list of things to do with the children… much of which is comprised of things I read about in your blog! Thank you fro the isnpiration!
Dana
October 27, 2008 at 11:55 amThis post took me back to my childhood (late 70s early 80s) when my mom and I made a bunch of teaddy bear bread for Christmas gifts one year. She still has the original magazine article too!
I like the sun idea…pretty!
teddy bear
April 22, 2012 at 12:06 amTiy have a lovely blog, I have really enjoyed reading it. My cat, now gone:( Decided once he was going to bring in a live chipmunk!!!! At least I can say he didn’t get the job done, caught him just in time! LOL He just looked at me like “what is wrong with you?? We could have such fun”.
Tabita
April 5, 2013 at 12:18 pmYour blog makes me so excited to raise my daughter who is just 16 months now. Thank you. Simply an awesome blog.
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