The Common Room: Hedgehog Bread Loaves

I shared a tutorial for this on FB last year, because I had trouble loading pictures, but the pics have been working again for a while now,I'm re-posting it where I can find it.

Take any batch of bread dough- this whole wheat oatmeal bread is a good one. It's also the one used below:

Take a lump about the size of your fist and shape it into an oval, placing it on your baking sheet:

I eyeball where the head should be, and use my thumb and forefinger, making a ring around the neck to indent that neck area (I don't explain this well, but I think the pictures are self-explanatory:

Now that you've made that neck and pulled the head out a bit, you push it back a bit- hedgehogs don't have long necks. Use your fingertips and tug the front end of the ball/head, out and down to a point. Indent and pinch some ears:

Now comes the part that makes this odd shape a hedgehog- it's incredibly simple, and I am not an artistic person at all. You need shears- kids scissors wrok, kitchen shears work. It doesn't matter.You're snipping at an angle, and you snip one row of points or triangles, move back and snip another row- think of fish scales or laying bricks- the points and spaces sort of alternate, if that makes sense. Don't stress about it because the bread dough itself will rise and in rising, improve the shape:

Tug out a tiny bit for a tail, rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger to make a tail. Take foru pieces of dough from the main lump of dough, roll it into balls (you want them a little smaller than marbles). Put them under the hedgehog for paws (the paws are not pictured here):

Add fruit or chocolate chips for eyes, a sliver of dried cherry or craisin makes a cute tongue. On the sheet below we also have a turtle, and some of the hedgehogs look more like ankylosauruses: