Behold! The adorable Ood dinner rolls won’t sing you to your sleep, but they will silently judge your choice of entree.
Much like the misunderstood Ood themselves, these adorkable rolls were born in confusion to a world that didn’t fully understand them. You see, I wasn’t trying to create alien life using common household items. I was actually trying to follow someone else’s clone recipe for King’s Hawaiian Rolls. You can read about the results here.
For those of you who didn’t click the link, suffice it to say the King wasn’t in the building. However, I was left with a whole heck of a lot of unusual, tasty dough that didn’t want to rise too much. That made it perfect for sculpting.
For those of you who want to abuse your kitchen to create your own race of eager domestic servants, I present this Whovian recipe, perfect for 50th Anniversary viewing parties.
Ood Rolls Will Sing You to Your Sweets
3 tbsp yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 ½ cups pineapple juice
1 tbsp vanilla
2 tsp salt
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 tsp ground ginger
6 ½ – 7 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup maraschino cherry juice
1 tsp red food coloring
Raisins
Start off by proofing your yeast in warm water. Let it bubble and froth like an Ood with Red Eye. After ten minutes of this, calm it down by adding the sugar, eggs, pineapple juice, vanilla, salt, melted butter, and ginger. Give it a good stir until you end up with a disturbing slurry.
Now fish out 1/2 cup of the slurry mix and put it in a bowl. Add the red food coloring and maraschino cherry juice.
Go back to your big bowl of beige. Mix in 6 – 6 1/2 cups of flour until you achieve a nice, hearty dough. If you have a stand mixer, let it knead away on speed 2 for the next 6-8 minutes. If you’re doing this by hand, knead the dough for about 8-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add 1 cup of flour to the red slurry. If that isn’t enough to make a dough, keep adding 1/4 cup at a time until you have something that looks and feels just like the main dough, only more tentacle-tastic. While your stand mixer or a companion knead the main body of the dough, you knead this red mess for 6-8 minutes.
Once both doughs have had their glutens stretched in preparation for their doughy fate, cover them with clean dishtowels and let them rise for an hour. This is a good time to catch up on an Odd-tastic episode of Doctor Who.
Now things get interesting.
The doughs should have roughly doubled in size. Punch them down into submission. Roll your red dough flat and cut it into long strips, about 1/8 – 1/4 inch wide by 3 inches long. These will be your mouth tentacles.
Grab a muffin tin and turn it upside down. Liberally spritz the bottom with nonstick cooking spray.
It’s finally time to assemble an Ood.
Pinch off a chunk of dough about the size of a golfball. You should have a smooth edge on one side and a slightly tapered, rough edge where you pulled the little ball away from the main body of the dough. Use your fingers to tease that rough edge open.
Shove one end of half a dozen tentacle strips into the newly created mouth hole.
Keep them in place by grabbing one edge of the dough surrounding hte mouth and tugging it in a circle, essentially wrapping it around the tentacles. Try to twist it in place without pinching.
You should now have a slightly wrinkly beige ball with a mouthful of red tentacles. Put the ball on the edge of one overturned muffin tin and let the tentacles drape gracefully downwards.
Use a pair of kitchen shears or a very sharp knife to snip two eye holes. Bury your raisins deep within. If you don’t, you risk the raisins popping out when these rolls rise and bake. These aren’t zombie Ood. Don’t leave them with one eye hanging out of its socket.
Keep making your own Ood army until you run out of dough. Once you’re finished, leave the rolls alone to rise for another 30 minutes.
If you’d like, you can whisk one egg, 1 tbsp water and 1 tsp vanilla together. After the rolls have risen, use a pastry brush to carefully paint the beige portions of the Ood faces. Leave the tentacles alone, though, they should look a little rough and tumble.
Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, or until the pale beige Ood flesh starts to turn a light golden brown.
These pair best with honey butter, Nutella, or a deep existential sadness.
You can find plenty of recipes for your Doctor Who viewing party (including lots of other tasty aliens) in Dining With The Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook.
