Bread Bears Recipe

I am a freelace food photographer who works with a focus on Tokyo and Japan. I have written a blog in Japanese for about seven years, but have now decided to start an English blog so people from all over the world can enjoy my 'kawaii' edible bears.


These edible bears got favorable reviews when I posted them on my Japanese blog.


○Bread Bears Recipe
ingredients
serving10(original recipe makes 10small bread bears)

200 g bread flour

60 g water

60 g milk

1tablespoon(10g) sugar

1/2 teaspoon(3g) salt

10g butter　

1teaspoon(3g) instant dry yeast

 Preparation
①Heat up the milk and stop right before it begins to boil. Then, leave it to cool.
②Get two bowls ready, and put bread flour and salt in one.
Put water(use lukewarm water during wintertime), the cooled milk, sugar, and dry yeast into the other bowl and mix together thoroughly. Add this mixture into the bowl containing the bread flour, and knead.
When the mixture becomes one cluster, take it out from the bowl, and knead the cluster until the surface of the dough becomes smooth.
When the surface becomes smooth, add butter and knead thoroughly once more. Then, roll the
dough into a ball and put into a bowl.

③Put plastic wrap onto the bowl. Then, by keeping this bowl somewhere warm, do the primary fermenting until the dough blows up to twice its size.

④Take out the dough from the bowl while being careful not to damage it.
Make 20 1g dough balls (these balls will later become the ear portion of the bear)
Split the remaining dough into 10 and roll each of them up.
Let the dough sit for 15 to 20 minutes after placing a fully wrung wet cloth on top.

⑤Lightly flatten the dough and punch it down. Re-roll all of them.
Firmly attach the ear portions (1g × 2) to the large rounded doughs and create a bear shape.
Put the bear-shaped dough on an oven plate with a baking sheet on top.
To prevent the dough from drying up, place plastic wrap and a fully wrung wet cloth on top. Make sure the plastic wrap does not stick to the dough.
⑥Do the secondary fermenting until the dough blows up to twice its size.

○White bear bread→Pre-heat at 190℃ and bake for 15 to17 minutes at 160℃
○Brown bear bread→Pre-heat at 220℃ and bake for 15 to 17 minutes at 190℃

Baking times and the temperature of the oven will differ according to the model, so please make adjustments accordingly.
After the bread is baked, create eyes and noses using toasted nori seaweed or chocolate.
People who are not Asian may not be very fond of toasted nori seaweed. I am currently researching on what can be used other than toasted nori seaweed to create the nose and mouth.

○Because this blog translates Japanese in a translation site and writes it, there may be the place where a sentence is wrong. sorry.