Stitch Character Bread and Lessons Learned

My daughter has gotten pretty good at making bread, and I thought it would be fun to try something a bit more challenging, like Panda Bread. However, that's been done plenty, so we opted to create bread with one of our favorite Disney characters, Stitch.

You can see that we made two smaller loafs initially as a sort of test run. I made one and my daughter made one. With these two loafs we were able to see some of the mistakes we were making and potential ways to improve it. I'm sure we could improve it even further on our next try. Regardless of how it turned out, it was fun to make and even more fun to cut into it when it was done. Even the deformed ones were a fun surprise.

I'll outline how we made our Stitch bread and provide some tips based on what we learned during the process.

bread recipe and ingredients (see step 2)

food coloring

bowl of water

knife

mixer with bread hook

bread pan

rolling pin

Start by choosing an image that is relatively round. Stitch has his big ears, but I was able to wrap them around his head in a way that included them in his round face.

Once you have an image, sketch out the shapes that will make up the image.

Lastly, figure out the best order to add each part.

The first image shows each shape I planned out. The gif shows the order that we added each part. We opted to start in the middle and work our way out. Some designs might be best working from bottom to top.

Ultimately, we changed the plan slightly by eliminating the hair and the two small circles over the nose.

Add all the ingredients below to your mixer's bowl except for the butter and, using a dough hook, mix the ingredients until there's no more dry ingredients. Add the melted butter slowly while it continues to mix. Mix for 10 more minutes.

Roll your dough into a ball, coat the bowl with some oil, add the ball of dough back to the bowl, and cover.

We gave it about an hour to rise, though I'm not convinced that was necessary because we spent the next step kneading it to death, but it's what we did.

Ingredients:

4 and 3/4 cups bread flour

1 and 3/4 cups milk

2 and 1/4 Tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons sea salt

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 and 2/3 Tablespoons butter

Estimate the amount of dough you'll need for each color. It may take multiple attempts to figure this out.

Our first couple attempts were challenging because we didn't get this right.

To give yourself a better chance at having all the color you need, you may want to make your loaf smaller than the dough would normally allow. If you have extra at then end, you could always just mash together what you have left and bake it separately.

Be sure to keep your dough wrapped up when you're not using it or it will get crusty and hard to work with.

For Stitch:

Cut the dough in half. Set one half aside.

Cut the remaining half into thirds.

Cut one of those thirds in half.

Flatten each section of dough and add food coloring. We used gel color and applied it with a toothpick.

Once you've applied some color, fold the dough up so the color is in the center.

Knead the dough until the color is evenly distributed. This took longer than we expected, so even if it doesn't seem like it's working, just keep at it.

For Stitch:

Leave the full half uncolored.

1/3 blue

1/3 pink

1/6 dark blue

1/6 teal

Each shape in the design will need to look like it does in the design at the end, but elongated into a "log."

To get pieces to attach to each other, use water. Just dip your finger in a bowl of water and apply it like glue to the surface of the dough before sticking to another piece.

This step includes one way we made a wrap larger on one side than the other. By putting a log of dark blue inside a wrap of dark blue, the blue is larger on one side than the other.

Another important thing we learned here was to make sure that when pieces have a top and bottom, to be sure to keep them straight. If one of these eyes is attached upside down, Stitch would look pretty crazy.

For Stitch:

Cut the dark blue into thirds. Put one third away.

Divide each of the remaining thirds into a small piece and a large piece.

Roll each piece into a log that is as long as your bread pan.

Cut two small pieces off of the uncolored dough and roll them into logs.

Roll out the large blue logs and wrap them around the small blue and white logs.

Use water to seal the ends of the wrap.

Be sure to make note of which side of the log has the dark blue. The white should be at the top of the log.

This step includes the second way we made a wrap larger on one side than the other.

For Stitch:

Cut the teal piece into thirds. Put one third away.

Roll out each of the remaining two thirds and roll up one long edge just a bit.

Wrap one teal piece around each of the eye pieces. Seal the ends with water.

Use water to attach each of the following pieces.

For Stitch:

Cut the blue dough in half. Cut two small pieces off of one half. Put the rest of the blue dough away. Roll the two small pieces into logs.

Roll the last of the dark blue into a log and stick it to the top of the two blue logs. The two blue logs will force the sides of the dark blue up to create the nose.

Stick the eyes to the sides of the nose.

Take the rest of the blue piece you cut from previously and roll it into a log. Stick this log on top of the nose.

For Stitch:

Roll out the remaining half of blue dough so that it will cover the bottom of the combined pieces. Stick it on. This is the mouth.

Roll one third of the teal into a log and pinch the sides so that it's more of a triangle shape.

Stick this piece to the bottom in the center of the mouth. This is the chin.

For Stitch:

Cut the pink dough in half. Form each half into a log and slice the top open like a hot dog bun.

Open up the cut and pinch the edges.

Stick one piece to each side of your combined pieces.

For Stitch:

Cut two more small pieces off of the uncolored dough. Roll these into logs.

Roll out the last of the blue dough into a sheet large enough to wrap around all the combined pieces.

Set the combined pieces on the edge of the blue wrap and roll it over the sheet of blue dough until it overlaps on the bottom of the combined pieces. Seal it well with water.

Find the divot from the cut in the ears. Apply water in the divot and stick the uncolored dough logs.

One of the things we learned from our first two attempts was that the dough was wider than the small bread pans we were using. The image is squished because we forced them into the pans. To avoid this on the third attempt, we used a larger pan than necessary and "padded" it with foil to create a trough that was the perfect size for the loaf.

Another thing that we learned is that it's important that this last wrap be sealed well and that the opening be at the bottom. The smaller loafs were sealed at the top and they burst through. Even our third attempt split at this opening, though it wasn't as bad as previous attempts. I'm not sure if we didn't get it centered on the bottom or if we didn't seal it well.

For Stitch:

Roll out the remaining uncolored dough and wrap it the same way as the blue wrap.

Put your completed dough in your bread pan.

For Stitch:

Bake at 355 degrees for about 20 minutes.

optional: Apply an egg wash and bake another 5 minutes.

Now the fun part! After allowing the loaf to cool, cut into it and see how you did.

When looking at the first two loafs, the sections of uncolored dough in the bottom corners of the design caused the mouth to deform and look more like neck. We eliminated that in the third attempt and got the mouth to look as it should.

The separation between sections in the third attempt are due to the fact that we didn't use water to attach those parts. If we had washed the uncolored dough wrap with a quick layer of water before wrapping, that likely wouldn't have happened.

The warping in the small loaves was due to squishing them into small bread pans. The shape of the third attempt was great, but was still warped because the final wrap split on the side, pulling the dough that direction.

Regardless of what character or design you create, have fun and don't worry if it doesn't come out perfect. The journey and the smile make these loaves exciting to make.