In the recent months, there have been so many videos on pull apart bread in Youtube. And the way it shows, it seems really easy to decorate those bread with animal or cartoon character faces – there is bear, cat, Winnie the pooh, keroppi, and many more. It looks so cute and fun for everyone to enjoy.
Thinking that it would be as easy as those videos show, I had my first attempt on making bear version. It turned out not so easy and simple at all. Decorating is difficult! Or maybe it is just me not having much of art talent at all that finds it so challenging. And to make those ears stick in the right place is not easy, as they expand, they will just glide off from its original intended location. The combination of bad shapes and terrible chocolate decorating result in bear wannabe instead of cute bears (ᵔᴥᵔ)
I use the Kitchen Aid mixer to do the mixing and kneading for this bread, and it did a great job. I don’t need to manually knead the dough at all. But, we all agree that the tangzhong version is so so much better. This recipe results in a soft bread while it is warm only, then it will get harder and dryer as it gets cold. The trick would be to warm it up on the microwave for few seconds, but even so, it will not be as fluffy as the tangzhong version. Anyway, this is the bread recipe I used on this batch:
- 250 bread flour
- Mix together and set aside: 1 teaspoon yeast + 1 teaspoon sugar + 150 ml warm milk
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 30 gram butter at room temperature
- Filling: anything to your liking (chocolate rices, choc chips, cheese, etc)
Add all the ingredients, except butter in mixing bowl.
Using dough hook to mix all ingredients until it forms a ball then add in the butter. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Let is rest for about 1 hour in a warm place until it doubles in size.
Divide the dough into 9 equal portions. For each portion, take out a small part to shape as the ears. Flatten the dough, fill with your preferred filling, close and shape as a ball, place in a square baking pan of 20 x 20 cm. Make a 2 small balls for the ears and attach to the top sides of the big ball. Continue for the rest of the dough portions.
Let the dough rest again for about 30 minutes.
Gently brush the top of the bread rolls with egg wash then bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 20 minutes.
Once it is cooked, take out of oven and spread with butter generously on the surface and side of the bread.
Enjoy while it is warm! 😀
