Bites and Pieces: Kawaii Panda Bread

This is a Japanese bread. It's called Kawaii Panda Bread... It looked so cute. I kept thinking about it ever since I saw the photo. Finally, I made it on last Thursday. It was quite a challenge, a lot of hard work and time consumed since it was my first time.

I found the recipe from Makansutra Blog Street!. Originally the recipe is from Taro Taro at www(.)cookpad(.)com. Thank you to Ms Lorriane Koh for the translation. Since I did not have green tea powder in hand, I substituted it with pandan essence. After all that hard work, I was very pleased with how my panda bread turned out. The bread taste really good but I feel I need to make it a little more lighter. Hubby said I did a great job and even suggested to create other animals' face... haha..

Spread butter over a slice of a warm fresh bread... ...Oooo... yummy! ;)

Ingredients:

For the dough

3 cups of all purpose flour

3 tbsp of sugar

1 cup of milk together with 1 egg yolk

¾ tbsp of salt

1 ½ tablespoon of butter

2 ½ tsp dry yeast

For the coloring of the Panda face

1 tbsp green tea powder mixed with 2 tsp hot water (I used pandan essence)

3 ½ tsp of Cocoa powder mixed with 1 ½ tsp of hot water

Method:

Warm the milk and egg mixture by placing it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Set aside.

Mix the flour, sugar, salt, butter and yeast together in a bowl.

Then add the milk and egg mixture. Mix together for about ten minutes. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Divide the dough into three portions – two about equal in size to each other, while the third should be sized about 1/3 of the other two. (Refer to image.)

Place one of the larger pieces in a bowl and add in the green tea. Mix together till the green is evenly spread out. Cover the green dough with cling wrap and set aside.

Take the smallest piece of dough and mix in the cocoa powder. Cover the brown dough with cling wrap and set aside. Do this for the white dough as well. Leave the dough pieces for about an hour (in a warm, covered surrounding) till they double in size.

Now it’s time to craft the panda face. Take the white dough and separate into three pieces – two about equal in size to each other, while the third should be sized about 1/3 of the other two (as you did earlier).

Take the brown dough piece and separate into four equal pieces.

Use one of the larger white pieces to form the face. Use two quarters of brown dough to form the eyes. Place the smallest white dough piece in the middle of the two brown “eyes”, to keep them in place. Flatten the other big white dough piece and wrap it around tightly.

As for the other two brown dough pieces, roll them into “ears” and place them on top. Divide the green dough into two – the bigger piece is about 4 times the size of the smaller piece.Place the smaller green part in the middle of the ears. Flatten the bigger green part and wrap it tightly around your creation.