Dragon biscuits right out of the oven
What a great idea! Dragon Biscuits/Rolls for the Harvest Festival time of year. In the US, the harvest festival happens on St. Michaels festival day, called Michaelmas. St. Michael was a “dragon-slayer,” which is why it is fun to slay some dragons with butter and jam (if you use red jam you can pretend it is dragon blood!) at this time of year. The recipe follows. I have more information at another site I made about the festival of Michaelmas that also includes this recipe with a lot more information.
You make dragon biscuits from stiff biscuit dough, bread dough, or even biscuit mix from the supermarket. The only thing you need to watch is that the dough is not too soft and won’t expand so much that the biscuit goes completely out of shape. Once you have formed the shape (make your dragon thin so that he can grow into the right shape) you can add sliced almonds sticking out of their backs to give them spikes on their backs. You can also add pine nuts as teeth, or an almond sliver for a tongue. Be creative with eyes. I tried pieces of citron for green eyes, 1/4 of a large red-hot cinnamon candy for another, and bits of raisins for the rest.
If you don’t want to make bread, you could also use gingerbread cookie dough and cut out dragon shapes using a sharp knife.
This idea came from a site called Our Little Nature Nest which they use in Waldorf Schools. It has other fun things to do for the Michaelmas festival.
DRAGON BREAD DOUGH
1 cup water
1 TBS honey
2 tsp yeast (a packet will also work)
2 TBS melted melted butter or healthy oil
3 1/2 cups flour (half whole wheat & half white is fine, but all whole will work just as well, or any combination of the 2)
1 tsp salt
DIRECTIONS
Warm the water to about “baby bottle temperature”
Add the honey, and mix
Add the yeast
Allow the yeast to “bloom”, and get bubbly
In another bowl mix the salt with 3 cups of the flour (save 1/2 cup for later)
Add the yeast/water mix, and the melted butter/oil to the flour/salt
Mix until it starts to come together
Dump the dough out onto a well floured surface
Knead the dough for a few minutes, adding the remaining 1/2 cup flour if needed a bit at a time until the dough is no longer sticky
Place in a bowl,cover with a towel & allow it to rise 30 minutes
PREHEAT the oven to 400 degrees F/ 200 C
Once risen you can shape into a dragon, or rolls, or a loaf.
Let rise for another 20 minutes
Bake for approximately. 20 minutes at 400 degrees. You can baste them with some egg that has been beaten with a little water added to make them shiny and brown.
To see how the dough was shaped into little dragons, please watch this video:
Click here to see the video on shaping dragon biscuits out of dough