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Halloween Spider Bread
When my kids were little, it was always a challenge to get real food into them between their classroom Halloween parties and evening trick-or-treating. I might’ve had more success had I known how to make this spider bread. Now, I’m planning to make this every year as a fun Halloween food that tastes great for both kids and grown-ups.
The black color of the bread comes from activated charcoal powder, which I’ve had in my pantry since making Dan Leader’s Baguette au Charbon Vegetal a few years ago. Actually, you might notice that the spider dough bears some resemblance to Leader’s baguette dough. I used 200g sourdough starter instead of 200g yeast poolish; plus olive oil to limit oven spring and flour that sits between refined and whole grain. Don’t worry too much about oven spring though, because it’s wonderful extra Halloween “ew” if your spider oozes out some cheese when baking.
Charcoal dough is quite beautiful, if a little disconcerting, and the charcoal doesn’t have much if any flavor. Activated charcoal powder is considered fine to consume infrequently and in small amounts, but large amounts (e.g. multiple loaves of this bread in one sitting) might interfere with your absorption of medications.
When I proposed the idea of a black dough spider bread, Eric had the awesome idea of making it specifically a black widow spider. These spiders have a red spot on their bodies, so I tried to think of a red-tinged seed I could put on the crust. I couldn’t come up with anything but maybe some Breadtopia community members will comment with ideas. I’m always excited to make bread as a meal, so it was an easy choice to redirect my plans to putting a red marinara dipping sauce in the spider’s body. I also stuffed the legs and head of the spider with mozzarella cheese. Throw a salad on the table with the spider and dinner is served!
I used Breadtopia’s bolted all purpose flour for this bread. It’s an 85% extraction flour from our hard red winter wheat berries that’s mild in flavor, has more nutrients than white flour, and performs really nicely through all the rolling and shaping of this dough.
You should see this recipe as a framework on which you can build all sorts of creative ingredient and design variations:
Halloween Spider Bread
Here's a super fun bread you can make for Halloween. The spider legs are creepy and yummy, and can be filled with a little or a lot of cheese. The marinara bowl and spider head can be shared by all or made into a sandwich and a soup bowl the next day.
Ingredients
Instructions
Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
Shaping and Final Proof (See the Photo Gallery below)
Baking and Decorating
Shopping List
All Purpose High Extraction Flour
$9.60 – $68.35Sourdough Starter (Live)
Breadtopia’s Choice Kitchen Scale
$18.00Dough and Storage Bucket w/Lid – 2 qt. Square
Bench Knife by Lamson — Walnut Handle
Parchment Paper Sheets — 200 Sheets
$19.00USA Pan Half Sheet Pan
$23.00ThermoPop® 2
Halloween Spider Bread