Bitchin Bread Battle Day 18: Woodbury Bleeding Zombie Victim Loaf

In honor of our fine mayor’s special sense of humor, you’ve been asked to make an atmospheric bread to share during our next Entertainment. Stop crying. You can do this.

Bleeding Zombie Victim Loaf

4 ½ – 5 cups flour
1 tbsp yeast
½ cup sugar
½ cup warm water
½ cup fresh blood orange juice
1 fresh tsp blood orange zest
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
6 drops red food coloring
2 drops yellow food coloring
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup raspberry jam

Mix the yeast and warm water. While it spends the next ten minutes frothing up, admire the blood orange they brought you. Uncut, it has the same heft and feel as knotty shoulder. Zesting it doesn’t feel like pulling the skin off a zombie. Not really. At least, that’s what the men of the biter patrols say. It’s just your imagination.

Once you’ve zested it, chop the zest into little pieces. See, now it’s nothing like flesh. Cut into your orange and squeeze out all the juice. It’s darker than you expect, but way too thin to really look like blood.

After the yeast blooms, add the sugar, salt, eggs, food coloring, fresh zest and blood orange juice. Whisk it all together then add the flour.

If you have electricity, go ahead and dump everything in your stand mixer. Attach the dough hook and let it knead away for the next 6 minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides. If there isn’t power, mix everything well then knead it for 8-10 minutes.

Your dough should end up the deep, fleshy pink of a Scottish redhead with a bad sunburn. Just keep telling yourself that. It’s not the color of a fresh wound. Cover it with a clean kitchen towel so you don’t have to look at it and let the dough rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it once. That feels better.

Spread flour on a clean surface and roll the dough out into a long rectangle.

Try not to cringe as you spread half a cup of raspberry jam across the surface of the bread. Yes, it now looks like a biter wound that’s still bleeding, but you can cover that up with some brown sugar and the flashbacks will stop. Probably.

Look, just roll the dough up and you won’t have to look at it anymore.

Once the dough is rolled, tuck the ends under and drop it into a large bread pan. You can cut it half and load up two smaller breadpans if you prefer. Whatever you do, cover it up with another light kitchen towel.

Go wash your hands. It’ll make you feel less unclean. You can take a whole hour to wash your hands while the dough rises. Try not to keep washing until your fingernails bleed, though, or the neighbors will think you have something to hide.

Once the dough doubles in size, you can whisk up another egg and paint it on the surface. The glossy top makes the bread look a lot less fleshy. Bake the bread for 25 minutes at 350F. If it’s too brown at 20 minutes, drape some aluminum foil over the top for the rest of the baking time.

If you cut into it while warm, the jam will dribble out the side so it looks like the fleshy pink bread is bleeding, so try to let it rest for at least an hour.

At the next Entertainment, give half your bread to the mayor and half to anyone who brought along enough homebrew to numb your brain until this ordeal is over.