st. patrick's day: rainbow leprechaun bread

I first posted about fairy bread back in 2007 to celebrate Australia Day! I've brought it back for St. Patrick's Day because rainbow sprinkles are hard to resist. This time, instead of butter, I have use creme  fraiche with a pinch of powdered sugar and an experiment in green color and frosting flavor. I think I prefer it sans the color but you can mix it up a bit if you like. In honor of St. Patrick's Day I have dubbed it Leprechaun bread, check it out! 

Leprechaun Bread:

*super soft bread 

*creme fraiche (or softened butter or other butter-like spread)

*sprinkles

*knife for spreading

*cookie cutters

*food color or frosting color/flavoring

To make super yummy fairy bread or for now Leprechaun bread you begin with a piece of super soft sandwich bread. I used both potato bread and a soft multigrain roll I had camping out in the fridge. Like I wrote in my previous post I prefer squaw bread butfor some reason squaw bread is hard to come by and these rolls realy kinda taste just like it.  

 Dollop a spoonful of creme fraiche (or cream cheese or other spreadable bit of goodness) into a small bowl and add a smaller spoonful of powdered/confectioners sugar. Hand your kiddo the spoon andl et them mix it all up. Add a drop or two of food color if you like and get back to mixing. I had an envelope of frosting flavoring that I wanted to try but did not want to flavor the whole container of creme fraiche nor did I wish to dump the whole packet of flavoring into my dollop so I tried a pinch or two or three so the color and minty flavor barely came through. When you make your Leprechaun bread you can add more or less. My take is to add less as the sprinkles really do pack a punch.

Hand you kiddo a butter knife or plastic knife or a cheese spreader and let them cover their bread with the creme fraiche. 

Now it is time for sprinkles. Your kiddo can shake away from the container directly or you can pour the sprinkles into a small bowl and see if they can use their fingers to pinch (fine motor skills in action!) their sprinkles onto their bread.

Once sprinkled to their satisfaction, hand over a cookie cutter and let them cut out a happy shape. Metal cookie cutters work best for this but even then may not cut nice and crisp. 

To creat a peek-a-boo bit of Leprechaun bread, have your kiddo use their cookie cutter on a plain piece of bread that is then sandwiched on top of the sprinkled bread. Cut of the crusts if you must but the shape the cookie cutter makes may stretch and morph a bit. You may wish to cut crusts off right at the bat.

Try different sprinkles or larger sprinkles (like my bunny bread up there?). Add two colors of food color and try mixing colors. Oooh, flavor and color the creme fraiche with a bit of green fruit juice, experiment, have fun! 

**I picked up my creme fraiche from good old Trader Joe's. I really wanted to use clotted cream but my jar was a scary shade of fuzzy green and I couldn't find any locally to purchase (World Market was out). There are all sorts of recipes out their for creme fraiche. You could also try using greek yogurt as well.  Oh and I left out my creme fraiche to soften and it got a bit too liquidy so the pics are a little less cool than I wanted. Soften your spread a smidge so it will be easier for your kiddos to apply but not so soft it melts away. Enjoy!