Frog bread was one of the quarantine trends I was desperate to try back in April, but it never happened. I would watch and rewatch my friend’s Tik Tok where she created her frog bread and named it Biscuit, yearning that one day I could make my own Biscuit, too. Taking a break from writing final essays to get messy and do something genuinely fulfilling was another reminder that in this semester of insanity, it’s the little moments that matter most. Although frog bread got popular on Tik Tok in 2020, the recipe I followed from The Fresh Loaf dates to 2005. It’s simple, it’s precious, and as long as you have cling wrap, it’s near effortless.

All the ingredients – flour, sugar, salt, milk, yeast and water – are readily available. You can buy a 3-pack of yeast at any grocery store for 99 cents if you don’t want to invest the four dollars for a jar of it.

At first, I was worried because the dough was so gooey. After kneading it for ten minutes like the recipe stated, it eventually firmed up and got easier to work with. I covered my dough with a towel, but the recipe author used cling wrap; to get the dough to rise properly, you need to cut off the airflow more than I did. As a result, my frog (his name is Clarence) is a little flat.

I also mixed up parchment paper with wax paper. It was a 50/50 shot if the frog would make it out okay or if I’d set fire to our oven. Because I’m not a particularly skilled baker, Clarence’s eyes also ended up a little funky since they didn’t get attached properly. I still love him.

Frog bread was a lot more time-consuming than I thought it would be (when videos of people making the bread are streamlined to be less than a minute, you get antsy). It takes 90 minutes for the dough to rise the first time, another hour of rising after you sculpt your frog, and then 45 minutes to bake. It’s a great way to break up the day, though. If you need something to use as a checkpoint as you study for finals and a snack for later, I cannot recommend frog bread enough.

Written by Maclen Johnson