I actually wanted to make entire tigers or giraffes. But I didn’t even try. I knew my bread modelling skills were not advanced enough. So claws and feet it is. These smell divine as they bake. All sesame goodness and ricey fug. I love them. They’d be great with soup or if you were feeling barbaric perhaps cut in half and stuff with avocado, chilli and some crisp grilled bacon.
One year ago: Choc dipped ice-cream cones and Sweetie covered ice-cream wafers and Razzamatazz ribs and Thoroughly British banana and custard cupcakes
Two years ago: Banana and custard melts and Thomas fairy cakes
Tiger bread rolls
Ingredients:
Bread:
- 500g strong white flour
- 7g easy bake yeast
- 7g salt
- 35mls sesame oil
- 300mls warm water
Tiger/giraffe paste:
- 50g rice flour
- 3g dried yeast
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3g castor sugar
- warm water to a thick paste
Mix all of the bread ingredients together and leave for 5 minutes (this makes kneading a lot easier.) Then knead in a stand mixer with the dough hook at speed 2, until smooth and elastic – takes about 4 minutes. Knead by hand for about 7 – 8 minutes until smooth and elastic.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm or a shower cap. Then leave to rise until double the size. Knock the dough back gently using a couple of turns of the dough hook – you’re just deflating it, or by punching it down with your hands. Mix the tiger topping together with the flat beater or a spoon – adding water to get a thick spreadable paste and leave for 15 minutes. It should be the consistency of thick porridge.
Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces then shape each piece of dough into a flat rectangle with one end slightly tapered. Roll the dough from the thick side to the thin side, placing onto a baking tray with semolina/a little flour scattered over it to stop any sticking. Repeat with all the rolls placing them at least 3cm apart. Smooth the tiger mixture over the top of the bread rolls using a teaspoon or knife – it needs to be about 3mm thick. Cover loosely with clingfilm.
Leave to proof until double the size, then make 4 cuts into the ‘open’ end of the roll with a pair of scissors – this will make you 5 ‘claws’ or ‘toes’ and bake in a preheated oven at 200C/Gas 6 until golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped – took about 20 minutes in my oven. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy with soup or anything else a tiger or a giraffe might like to be accompanied by.
Postscript: I have changed the water and oil amounts of this recipe after a few people felt the dough was so sticky it was hard to work with… you’re right of course, it was hard to work with! Just that very wet dough gives a fantastic result but in hindsight you have to be fairly into your bread making to enjoy working with super sticky dough.
Get the monthly newsletter...
and subscribe to get all recipes straight to your inbox!
Holly Bell 
Hi Holly, attempted to make these this morning. I followed your instructions carefully and weighed everything using digital scales but the dough ended up very wet and sticky and I could not shape it at all. It ended up looking more like road kill than anything else! Do you please have any suggestions as to what I did wrong? :-( x
Hmmm, now this is a wet dough (they taste better) but it should still be shapeable. Different flours absorb liquid at different rates so I would suggest you add 50g more flour when shaping to help with structure. I used Sainsbury’s own white flour which absorbed this amount of water and oil fine. What brand were you using out if interest? X
Holly
Thanks for the reply. I used Tesco’s own brand strong white flour which I always use and never usually have any problems with it. I wondered whether adding slightly less oil/water would help…x
Try less water – I believe the recipe is 300mls. Try 250mls. Or if you ever have a very wet dough you can add a little more flour too. I used exactly these measurements though and whilst it was super sticky it was okay. Will have a think. x
I had always wondered how tiger bread was made, some kind of animal magic perhaps? Jack (5) once checked if there were real tigers in it before he ate it! But now I know, thank you for sharing, and I look forward to using this recipe as a half term activity, although I suspect they won’t look quite as beautiful as yours!
Happy half term baking! There is no better way to make a lot of mess and have a lot of fun than baking with kids is there. xx