I've got an old (1991- sixth printing) edition of Sunset Breads: Step-by-Step techniques. It's got a Columba de Pasqua (Easter Dove) bread recipe that doesn't have fruit in it, but uses almond paste and whole, blanched almonds to get a 'feather' appearance on the bird's wings. They've got a sketch of how to shape the loaf that looks like it would work (haven't tried it myself). They divide the dough into two equal balls. One gets rolled out into an 11x6-inch oval. That's going to be the spread wings of the bird. The other piece gets rolled into a triangle about 8 inches across the base and 16 inches tall. The triangle gets laid right across the middle of the oval (like making a plus sign with the triangle over the oval). Now here's the part that's hard to describe. Fold the pointy top of the triangle over on itself to the right. This makes the turned head of the dove, in profile. (Their sketch shows the point drawn out to look like a beak - probably disappears in baking - and the 'head' rounded.) Then take the wide base of the triangle and fold it over in the opposite direction. This makes the tail. Gently pull the tail into a fan shape and cut five slits in it to make the tail feathers. They put 13 balls of almond paste on the wings and pressed a whole almond into each, for the wing feathers, and another almond into the head to make an eye. Since it's rolled out fairly flat, I would think that this would at least suggest the shape of a bird, after rising and shaping, better than something that begins as two logs laid over each other. This is so great, thanks for sharing it with us! ~Amy

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