Making Dough Bunnies and Turtles with Dylan

We made rabbits and turtles today and they were both cute and delicious!

Here's the recipe, adapted from a recipe in The Book of Bread by Judith and Evan Jones (now out of print - so no link to it).

• 1 T active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup local honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup light cream or milk (we used 1/8 cup half and half and 1/8 cup whole milk)
• 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 tsp grated orange peel (we grated a whole orange - and used all of it - a little more than 1 tsp)
• 2 1/2 - 3 cups white flour

Put yeast in a medium bowl with warm water and honey. When dissolved add eggs, vanilla, milk/cream, salt, butter and orange peel. Beat until mixed. Stir in 2 1/2 cups of flour. Switch to dough hook and knead both in the mixer and more on the counter - about 6 minutes or so, adding flour as needed.

Let rise as in picture below for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. As you know, doughs with eggs and sugar take longer to rise than other recipes.


Divide dough into four parts. Cut parts of the dough off for ears, tails, etc. We used the bench knife for that. Shape the creatures you want and put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. You may add raisins, pine nuts, whatever as eyes, noses, etc. Here's Dylan adding dried cherries for eyes to his turtles.


Allow the critters to rise again for about an hour or so. Then brush with an egg wash before putting into the oven. I also took a serrated sharp knife and cut a design in the turtle's "shell."


Note: You may need water to help glue the appendages to the body of the roll.

Bake at 350 for 20 - 25 minutes. If you have thin extremities, you may need to cover them in foil as the baking proceeds.



These look cute and taste fabulous - the orange and the honey work well together to make a delicious roll/sculpture.