Easter Sheep

Every Easter, my family becomes a bit baking crazed - there are such great things that you can bake! Several years ago, we added the Easter sheep to the tradition. Ususally, Easter is all about lambs, but this one looks more like a fully grown sheep with a LOT of wool! This year, I made two smaller sheep from spelt flour with one third whole grain flour. Thanks to it's modular construction you can divide it into small chunks at eat it in small bites ;-) 

Ingredients:
500 g flour (wheat, German Type 550, spelt flour German Type 630, whole grain flour)
80 g sugar
80 g butter
¼ TSP salt
1 P. (15 g) dry yeast
250 ml milk

raisins or almonds for the eyes
1 egg for shining/brushing
chunky sugar (hail sugar in German)

Energy: 1367 kcal per sheep (at 2 sheep) 

Preparation:

Combine the ingredients to a yeast dough, knead it in a bowl until smooth, shiny, and elastic, cover the bowl with clingfilm and set to rise for about an hour. Line a baking rack with baking paper.
Turn out the dough, knead it through to knock out the air, and cut it two for the two sheep. From each dough half, use some dough to form the head and the feet of the sheep and place them on the baking paper, add one or two raisins for eyes and push them into the dough.
For the body, shape the remaining dough in many walnut sized balls and set them on the baking paper loosely next to each other. Add a small piece of dough for the ear. Let the sheep rise for about 5 minutes and brush them with beaten egg. Sprinkle the body with the chunky hail sugar, then bake at 180 °C for about 20 minutes.

If you want to use all the dough for one big sheep, like the one below, you should bake it at 180 °C for about 35 minutes.