They call this kind of baked treat “Chigiri Pan”, because you’re supposed to tear off the buns  before eating them.

(So… you think Kylo Ren would identify with the “torn apart” idea?)

Anyway, I watched many Pull Apart Bread recipes, some of them shaped the buns like bears or bunnies. And other even more complicated, like Winnie the Pooh characters.

But I believe mine is one of a kind.

Plus, after some trial and error, I discovered that I could make black food coloring and paint the dough so… BB-9E also joined the recipe :).

I hope you enjoy this BB-8 & BB-9E Pull Apart Bread! It turns out super cute, soft and DELICIOUS.

Ingredients

For the bread

• 2/3 cup + 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp honey
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2/3 tsp instant dry yeast
• 1/3 cup warm milk
• 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp edible food colors (red, blue, green and yellow)
• 6 tbsp (or 3oz) cream cheese – optional

Materials Needed

• aluminum foil
• 10 inch or longer baking dish / cookie sheet

Instructions

1. In a bowl mix 1/3 cup of flour, sugar, honey, yeast and warm milk. Once it’s mixed add the rest of the flour, butter and salt. Keep mixing with your hands until the dough stops sticking to the bowl.
2. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured countertop and knead for about 5 minutes – until the dough ball stops being sticky and gets more elastic. It will smell delicious, by the way.
3. Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a clean towel. Make sure it doesn’t get too cold. (I put mine close to the stove to keep it a bit warm). Let it rest for 1 hour until it doubles its size. (There’s nothing to prep while you wait, so you might as well bring a laptop with Netflix and choose a movie in the 1 hour of free time – is that enough time to choose a movie?? I think not).
4. Once the dough is ready, you will divide it into four pieces, A, B, C and D: 
   • A: small piece the size of a raspberry – You will color it orange
   • B: another small piece the size of a raspberry – You will color it grey 
   • C: once you have A and B, take the rest of the dough and divide it into 2 equal balls. The first ball will be C. – You don’t need to color it.
   • D: the last dough ball will be D – You will color it black

Let’s make BB-8! 

1. Let’s start making BB-8! Take the “C” piece of dough and divide it into 3 equal balls. Those balls will make 3 little BB-8 droids.
2. Use those dough balls to form 3 droids with a head and a body. Fill the bodies with a tablespoon of cream cheese. This step is kinda optional since the bread is sweet and delicious enough to eat it by itself. (But if I had to choose between with or without cheese, I would ALWAYS choose WITH).
3. Let these guys rise in a covered bowl while you make BB-9E.

Let’s make BB-9E!

1. Follow the exact same steps you followed to make your BB-8 droids. Except this time you will use the “D” piece of dough and paint it black. To make black food coloring I just mixed red, green and blue in equal amounts until the mix turned black. It took about 1 tbsp of the mix to get the color right. (Say goodbye to your manicure because all the kneading required to color the dough might stain your nails – it washes away after a hundred tries though).
2. Let these guys rise in a covered bowl while you make all the details for both droids.

Let’s make the details.

1. Take the “A” piece of dough and color it orange. (I used 1 drop of red food coloring and 4 of yellow). Make little pinch-size balls of dough and then roll them to make long strips.
2. Take the “B” piece of dough and color it grey (with a few drops of the black color). Repeat step 1 with this dough.
3. Now go get your little droids and add a few details using these colored strips. Just use a little pressure and the strips will stick to the bodies. You can use them to make the circles on their bodies, their eyes, and other details. I used a picture for reference but didn’t worry about making them too perfect. 

Let’s bake these droids.

1. Preheat the oven (or toaster oven) to 300F.
2. Grease your baking pan and arrange the little droids in a circle, making sure they are touching each other (but not too tightly).
3. Make an aluminum paper tube to stick in the middle of the droid circle to provide support. It looks pretty much like a toiler paper tube, but made of aluminum. I made mine by rolling a bunch of aluminum paper around an olive oil glass bottle. If you have a chiffon cake pan, you can use that instead.
4. It’s very important that you provide enough support for your droids. (And I don’t mean emotional support). They will rise and get chubbier in the oven and if you don’t keep them in their place, they will grow crooked or their heads might fall-off. I added many pieces of support between the aluminum tube and the droids just to be sure. 
5. Put those baby droids in the oven for 25 minutes. Note: I checked them around the 20 minutes mark and noticed that BB-8 was getting too tanned, so I made him a little aluminum foil hat to prevent more browning. 
6. And ta-da! Take them out of the oven and let them get a little cold before removing the from the pan. I MEAN IT. I know they smell delicious, but they’re so soft you might pull them apart too soon.

The droids you seek are aboard the Millenium Falcon (or not).

They turned out delicious AND SO CUTE. It’s almost hard to eat them.

Almost…

I’ve got a great feeling about this…

Let me know if you make them because I would love to see your pictures.

These buns are so incredibly soft! They should soft for about two days, though mine never last that long. I recommend eating them warm because the cheese filling will be gooey and perfect.

May the force be with you in the kitchen.

The post Star Wars Recipes – BB-8 Pull Apart Bread appeared first on Pretty Geekery.