Igor! Fire up the lightning generator! We’ve made so many edible ears, eyes, and brains – now, my minion, it is time for us to ensure our creation can nourish its mind as well as its body. It needs bravery, strength, and most of all, bloody red (velvet) guts!
Red Velvet Cinnamon Roll Guts
Dough:
• 1 tbsp yeast
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp red food coloring
• 1 box Red Velvet cake mix
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
Filling:
• ½ cup melted & cooled butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
Vanilla Sugar Glaze:
• 4 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2-3 tbsp milk (depending on your preferred thickness)
• 2 – 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• Pinch table salt
Healthy intestinal flora are the key to good health, so mix a tablespoon of yeast with a tablespoon of brown sugar to feed it then resuscitate our sleeping workers with 2 ½ cups of water heated to 105-110F. Whisk it all together until the yeast cheerfully dissolves into its warm bath. Let it celebrate this new life for about 10 minutes. When the bowl looks like the aftermath of bubble bath poured into sludge, we’re ready for the next stage.
Halfheartedly mix in the salt, red food coloring, and vanilla extract. The really interesting part comes from dumping in the entire box of cake mix and all of the flour. Keep stirring until the odd dank mess transforms into a dough, then attach the torturous looking dough hook to your stand mixer and let it rip and knead the red flesh for 6-8 minutes, until it becomes a smooth and glossy dough. If you prefer, you can always use your hands for 8-10 minutes.
Form the dough into a ball and hide it from the world for an hour. When you return, it should have grown to twice its size.
Take the wind out of it with a single punch. While it’s recovering, spread your largest clean counter with a bit of flour. You’re going to roll the entire wad of dough out until it’s about 18×24 inches.
It seems to clean and dry. Mix your melted butter with brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon until it looks like dirty gravel. Smear the mix over your entire dough. You should end up with a pastry that looks like it has a bad case of road rash.
Roll the entire thing along it’s long side so instead of a big rectangle of gravelly skin you now have a suspicious tube. Cut the entire tube into 2 inch wide slices.
Lube up a 9×13 main pan and an extra 9” round (or 8×8 square) one, because this makes a lot of guts.
Now for the fun part. Gently unravel one of the rolls and loop it along the top of your large pan. You want to create the look of descending intestines with their natural whirls and dead ends and odd passages, so create little bunches of wavy lines in some places, an awkward circle in others, and lots of back and forth across the width of the pan.
You don’t want to pack it in there too tightly. These still need to rise for another hour before they bake. It’s alright if you can see a few gaps down to the bottom of the pan. Just cover it up and wait for another hour. When you come back, the guts will be bursting out.
Pop them into a 350F oven for 24-28 minutes. The flesh will darken and the highest edges will brown slightly, which only adds to the effect.
While the guts bake, create your glaze by whisking together the melted butter, vanilla, salt, powdered sugar, and 2-3 tbsp of milk, depending on how thick you like it. The thicker the glaze, the more it obscures the beautiful red intestines you’ve just worked to create. You can always make extra as a dipping sauce if people prefer their guts extra gooey.
Psst! This year’s crop of Halloween recipes are ripped straight from the pages of Kitchen Overlord’s cookbook: Dead Delicious!
Whether your Halloween revolves around zombies, slashers, or body horror, you can cover your table with so many eyes, ears, guts, and brains your kitchen will look like the aftermath of a horror movie. Click here to get your copy now! It’s the perfect gift for your favorite Walking Dead fan!
