Turtle Bread

Not as exciting as turtle cake or turtle brownies, but still fun. Mom brought along a cook book with recipes from A to Z, and T was for turtle. Zachary was very excited to make it. I told him we could make one and share it for dinner, but he declared he wanted to eat his entire turtle all by himself, so we made several. I ended up doubling the recipe, but splitting it into three turtles. We had one green, one pink, and one hybrid, which was still baking at picture time.
2 1/2 to 3 cups of flour
1 package of yeast
1 tbl sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup milk
1 tbl butter or marg
1 egg

1. Mix 1 1/2 cups of the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in large bowl.
2. Heat water, milk and butter together until warm. If you want to color your turtle add food coloring at this point. Stir into yeast mixture. Stir in egg. Stir in enough flour to make the dough easy to handle. (I used it all.)
3. Knead the dough either by kneading by hand for about 5 minutes or letting your mixer have at it with the dough hook. I did a little of each so the kids could play in the dough.
4. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
5. Grease a cookie sheet. Shape a ball for the head, 4 smaller balls for feet, and a little ball for the tail. Shape remaining piece into the body. Place on the cookie sheet and tuck the other parts slightly underneath.
6. Cover and let rise 20 minutes.
7. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Make criss-cuts in the body, about 1/4" deep, to make the shell and toes. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes.