Star Trek Week: Klingon Blood Orange Pull Apart Bread

We’re not all Federation-lovers at Kitchen Overlord. Some of us follow a warrior’s path. While fresh Gagh and your Earthican live calamari are a good start, the mighty Klingon empire also deserves tribute in the form of delicious food! These blood orange pull apart breads taste almost as sweet as victory itself.

Klingon Blood Orange Pull Apart Rolls

Bread:

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

Glaze:

¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 cup powdered sugar
¼ cup blood orange juice
red and yellow food coloring

Allow the warmth of your water to rehydrate and reenergize the worthless species of yeast. As they feast and gorge, burping and farting to produce precious gasses, know that they will never experience the glory of dying in battle.

While your unworthy yeast builds an inferior civilization in your mixing bowl, rip the zest from a blood orange. If you don’t have a zester, use a peeler to carefully flay only the outermost skin of the blood orange. You musn’t get any of the bitter white pith within, so use this as an excuse to practice your skin flaying skills before interrogating prisoners of war. Bruise the zest with the flat of your most mighty blade, then mince it fine.

You should have a second, trembling blood orange nearby, watching. Once the zested orange is skinned, squeeze out its life blood. Discard the corpse, taunt the remaining orange, then cut it in twain and squeeze every bit of fluid from its body.

Once ten minutes have passed, it is time to destroy the yeast civilization. First, build up their hopes by stirring in your sugar. Then burn those hopes into ash by adding the salt, blood orange zest, ½ cup of blood orange juice, both eggs, and your red and yellow food coloring.

Beat the mix like a disobedient Romulan prisoner. Once tamed, smother the liquids with flour. Roughly mix them together, then attach your dough hook of honor to the mighty stand mixer and let it rip and knead your dough for six minutes. If you don’t have a stand mixer, fold, pummel, and knead your dough by hand for 10-12 minutes.

Admire the flesh-like color of the dough. If you want it closer to the dark red of the Klingon Empire’s sigil, add another 1 1/2 teaspoons of red food coloring before you add the flour.

Cover the mixing bowl with a clean towel and let the dough rise for about an hour, or until it doubles in size. Note how the more it grows, the more flesh-like it becomes. Once it thinks it can escape the bowl, punch it into submission and once more submerge it into darkness by covering the bowl with a clean tea towel.

Instead of beating it a second time, toss the dough onto a well floured surface.

Roll the blood orange dough into a rough rectangle.

Cut the rectangle into smaller rectangular strips. You need two strips to assemble each roll. The top vertical strips hould be roughly half the length of the bottom horizontal strip.

Use a knife to transform that rectangle into a diamond. You want the long, upper half of the diamond to take up 2/3 of the body.

Cut a V into the lower, horizontal strip of dough. Your upper diamond should fit in nicely.

Now twist the outer edges of your dough to form our mighty sigil. The left side should point down while the right side points up.

Gently pinch the three segments together. You want them just attached enough to bake together, but not enough they won’t pull apart easily. Don’t get overly enthusiastic. If you squeeze too hard, your mighty Klingon symbol will end up looking like a slightly malformed dough penis.

Don’t let this happen to you.

This is also why you need to bake the rolls immediately. Don’t succumb to the temptation to let them rise a second time. If you do, you might as well tell the rest of your cosplaying friends that tonight you’re finally going to make that very special porn you’ve been whispering about for ages.

Once you’ve assembled all your Klingon Blood Orange Rolls, bake them at 350F for 15-18 minutes, or until the tops turn a rusty blood red.

While the rolls cook, mix your blood orange sauce. Start by melting the butter into fatty submission. Whisk it together with the sugar, fresh squeezed blood orange juice, and 5-6 drops of red food coloring.

As soon as the pull-apart rolls come out of the oven, use a pastry brush to paint them with icing. This way, the sugars will soak into the top layer of bread while it is still cooling.

Serve these to mighty warriors, beautiful maidens, and honorable allies.

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