HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This month we have been having fun celebrating the goriest, scariest holiday of them all…Halloween! JAMESON is forever pretending to jump around hot lava, so we got a sweet hot lava sticker for our kitchen floor. Once he discovered the sticker one morning it was an easy transition into choosing Hot Lava Bread as our next cooking lesson.

This took us a few attempts, but I think we made out with a delicious final product. The recipe we found suggested using pre-made bread mix. That didn’t work out too well for us so we relied on our standard bread dough recipe and adjusted from there. See lessons learned at the end.

GET READY FOR THE FIRE!!

Share your thoughts, memories and pictures below in the comments.

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time:  125 mins

Ingredients for Red Inner Dough:

• 1  packet active dry yeast

• 2 tablespoons of sugar

• 2 cups warm water

• 1 tablespoon salt

• 6 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• Red food coloring

Ingredients for Black Topping:

• 1 packet of active dry yeast

• 1 cup of warm water

• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 cups rice flour

• Black food coloring

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

STEP ONE:

First step is proofing the yeast.  Add the yeast and sugar to warm water and whisk until dissolved.  Let it sit for approximately 5 minutes, or until tiny bubbles appear on the surface.

STEP TWO:

This is where you add the red food coloring to the yeast mixture.

STEP THREE:

Measure out 6 cups of flour into separate bowl. Whisk the salt into yeast mixture, and then slowly add the flour.  At the end it will get tough to stir and you will need to help.

STEP FOUR:

Start mixing the dough with your hands.  Dive in and get sticky!  You should be able to make a sticky ball.

STEP FIVE:

Sprinkle the counter with flour and place down the dough.  Knead it until it is smooth with some elasticity. This can take a couple of minutes.  Then cut the larger dough ball into smaller balls. We were able to make seven balls. Once the balls are on the cooking sheet wrap them in plastic wrap for an hour.

STEP SIX:

After the interior Red dough has been sitting for approximately 30 minutes begin to make the top layer. In the mixer combine the yeast, sugar, oil, salt and rice flour.

STEP SEVEN:

Add black food coloring to the warm water prior to mixing it with the ingredients in the mixer. Our rock covering turned out to be a little grey verse black but it worked out well.

STEP EIGHT:

Generously apply this mixture over the red lava balls. It should be dripping over the sides and not perfectly done. Once they are coated put them into the oven for approximately 30 minutes.

STEP NINE:

Let the bread cool, crack it open and taste the hot lava! The bread was delicious with melted butter all over it.

LESSONS LEARNED:

First we tried to make it with pre-made boxed bread mix. We are not sure what we did wrong, but it definitely was way too sticky and not able to roll into balls. We had to come back another day.

Next we went back to our trusty bread dough recipe, but didn’t remember to add the food coloring. Don’t worry we saved the bread and made red marble loafs of bread! We head back to square one.