Nailed It! – Santa Bread Recipe from Kira Archer

My mom has this recipe for rolls that I love so much I use it for pretty much any kind of bread item I’m making. Rolls, cinnamon rolls, fried bread, and Santa bread. Santa bread is a kind of newish Christmas tradition that I’ve been doing for a few years. I came across the recipe a few years ago and it was so adorable I had to try it. Only with my mom’s bread recipe. Because it’s so yummy I’m slightly obsessed LOL

Anyhow, the basic gist is that you take some bread dough and shape it like a big Santa face. It’s supposed to end up looking like this:

I’ll show you my “nailed it” version at the end ;-) But first, the bread recipe!

2 cups warm water

3 packages yeast (1 tablespoon)

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon salt

¾ cup powdered milk

1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon shortening

6 ½ cup flour

Mix in a mixer in the order listed (I usually let the water and yeast mingle for a few mins first). You can knead it or let the mixer do it for you until the dough forms a nice ball. Let rise until double. Then, you start making your Santa face.

Punch the dough down and divide it into two portions, one a little bigger than the other.

Take the large piece and shape it into an elongated rounded triangle. This makes Santa’s face and hat.

Take the smaller piece and divide it in two. Flatten one piece to make Santa’s beard. Lay it on his face and use scissors or a pizza cutter to divide it into strips (be sure to leave about an inch at the top to keep them all connected). Twist the sections to look like curls.

The rest of the dough is for Santa’s mustache, nose, brim of the hat, and pom-pom for the hat. For the mustache, flatten and cut each side into 3 or 4 strips, similar to the beard, leaving an inch or so between the left and right sides. Position above the beard and add a small ball of dough for his nose.

For the hat – fold the tip of the hat over and add the pom-pom at the end of the tip. Roll out a hat brim and add it under the hat.

The original recipe calls for raisins for eyes, but no one in my family likes raisins so we always use chocolate chips.

To color the bread, take two small bowls and beat an egg yolk in each one. Add red food coloring to one bowl. Use a pastry brush to paint Santa’s hat, nose, and two spots of color on each cheek. Brush the plain egg yolk over the remaining bread.

Loosely cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree over for about 15 mins. Then uncover and back 10-15 minutes more until golden brown.

Hopefully, you’ll end up with something that looks like the pic above. Or, you’ll get something that looks like mine:

NAILED IT :-P

Either way, it tastes amazing!

The original recipe and directions were found on the Taste of Home website. I haven’t tried the recipe on there yet, but it is pretty similar to my mom’s.