The Three Little Bears

We ran out of bread. I only had one package of yeast left. One package of yeast is enough to make one loaf of bread, but I felt like trying something different. Instead of bread braids, like I usually do when I want something different, I thought I'd try bread bears. Not so useful to make, say, a sandwich, but oh so cute! You could do this with any kind of bread dough, even store bought frozen dough if you're not keen to make it yourself but still want some cute little edible bears. You could do cinnamon-raisin bread with raisin eyes (my oldest doesn't like cinnamon and I don't like raisins, so it wouldn't go over so well here). You could do chocolate chips. Oh I have so many ideas! In fact, you could do any other animal you want. How fun!
Anyway, I just used Betty Crocker's basic crusty white bread recipe again, except I made half the recipe since I had just one package of yeast. This made three bears.

And as I said before, one of my favorite things is punching down the dough. And no, my sweater sleeve is not touching the dough, although it does look like it in the picture. And no, that's not a mole on my finger...it's food coloring from an earlier baking project today that I'm hoping to share with you tomorrow.
After punching down the dough, you can shape your bears. Or pigs. Or elephants. Or whatever your little heart desires. Ooh, you could even make hearts!

The bears then have to sit in a warm spot and double in size...about 30 minutes.

I then baked them at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, took them out, drew eyes with a food marker, and voila! Three little bears!

So cute! Be careful when shaping the bears though...all the cracks that show in the dough show ten-fold after it's baked.

Add a honey bear, and you have a cute breakfast for your cubs.

Oh, and by the way, we ate Dinner #3 of our Fifty Dollar Food Week tonight, but it was just leftovers, so no new pictures. I'll have some tomorrow, though; tomorrow is hubby's birthday, so I'm making a good one!