In the Year of Fearless Baking: Detour #1: Giraffe Bread

People, I’m going to get right to the point. I had every intention of getting something checked off the list this weekend, but stumbled upon something so outrageous it demanded my immediate attention. Giraffe bread, or pan de jirafa.

Trying out this challenge appealed to me for a couple of different reasons. First, I just really dig giraffes. They are super weird, beautiful creatures, and I recently saw this footage that made me even more interested in them. Second, the idea of making bread that is animal printed is, well, hilarious.

To start, I had to translate a recipe from Spanish. Shockingly, it wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be (shout out to to my teen self for all those years of studying). I used this recipe here. Essentially, this recipe is a basic milk bread, but then you divide the dough into three parts and add cocoa powder in different quantities to two of them. Then, using a technique rather like millefiori, the doughs are rolled out and wrapped around each other.

For a first attempt (from a recipe that wasn’t even in English), it came out pretty well. The flavor and texture are nice. I wish I had taken the extra step to roll everything out double and cut them to make twice the spots- I was worried about overdeveloping the gluten so I skipped it, but I think it would have handled the extra attention just fine. Also, in retrospect I think this recipe definitely requires a pullman pan. Looking forward to future attempts- stay tuned for more animal-print shenanigans. Maybe someday I’ll realize my new dream: a perfect, square, peanut butter and jelly sandwich which just happens to be zebra striped.

Things are about to get weird.