"crabby" Bread!

Submitted by Wildflour

"This is SO CUTE!!! Place "crab" onto lettuce-lined platter with mound of your favorite crab dip, surround with shells and crackers if desired! GREAT for parties, picnics and BBQ's!"

 

• Ready In: 35mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 5 Rhodes frozen rolls, texas, thawed but still cold
• 1 toothpick, broken into 4 pieces
• 14.79 ml butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten
• paprika (optional)
• 1 pimento stuffed olive, halved
• crab dip (or any seafood-style dip, spread, etc.)
• cracker (optional)
• fresh dill sprig

directions

1. For the body, join 2 rolls together and press into a flat football shape. Place body on a large sprayed baking sheet.
2. With the next roll, cut enough dough off to form 2 small eyes. Roll each piece into a round ball and place on front of body. To secure eyes, stick a small piece of toothpick in each ball and then stick it into the body.
3. Cut the rest of the roll in half to form 2 arms. Place each arm to the side of the eyes but before the ends of the body.
4. Cut another roll in half to form 2 claws. Then cut each claw off-center almost in half and place at the end of each arm, putting the small part of the claw closest to the body. Roll the last roll into a 12-inch rope. Divide rope into 6 equal lengths for the legs. Arrange 2 legs curving forward and 1 leg curving back on each side. Tuck legs slightly under the body.
5. Brush crab with melted butter, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 30-45 minutes, or til doubled. (I let mine rise for 1 hour, but 45 minutes would've been perfect, mine looked kinda fat, haha!).
6. Brush crab with beaten egg and sprinkle lightly with paprika.
7. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.
8. Toothpick olive halves onto ends of eyes of dough. Cut-side facing outward.
9. Place crab onto lettuce-lined platter.
10. Place mound of your favorite crab dip between claws.
11. Surround with decorative shells (or oysters on the half shell), crackers and fresh dill sprigs if desired!
12. I made this for me and my hubby for a "special treat" lunch! I'm allergic to crustaceans, so we had it with my lemon-dilled tuna salad and had a ball! It was so much fun tearing off the pieces and spreading them with tuna, instead of the plain 'ol plain 'ol tuna sandwiches!
13. You could make a nice seafood appetizer platter with this, too! Shrimp cocktail and fried oysters would be a great addtion! (A nice mix of hot and cold!).
14. Hope ya try it! :) It's really easy! And FUN!

Reviews

[Chef Dee]

Wildflour, between this wonderful Crabby Bread and my Stuffed Penguins, I'm not sure which one stole the show on my holiday appetizer table !! Do not hesitate to try this remarkable and edible centerpiece. I am not at all crafty so I saved the picture to my computer, enlarged it and printed it out so I would have it handy when I shaped the dough, and it was much easier than I had anticipated. It is important to use cold thawed dough, you do not want it to have started to rise or it will be too soft to shape. I did not allow the dough to rise more than an inch before baking and it rose to a perfect height while in the in the oven. I think that presentation is key to a centerpiece so I covered a cookie sheet with foil then layered it with Kale. I placed the baked crab bread to one side and surrounded it with seashells as Wildflourd did. I baked up a crab dip in a clear dish and served it on the same pan. I had some awesome comments from my guests and will make the recipe many times in the future. I prepared over 50 items for our Open House, so to save time, I baked the Crabby Bread a week ahead of time and froze it, covered, on a pan. This worked very well and I felt less pressure having it done ahead of time. Thank you for posting !!