Octopus Dinner Rolls

I saw these Octopus Dinner Rolls in a magazine (can’t remember which one) and thought they’d be fun to tackle with my girls.

They do take a few minutes to shape, but they’re pretty easy to make – and especially fun to eat!

I used crescent rolls that had a butter flavor in them already, but if yours don’t (or you’re making your own dough), you can always wrap up a small chunk of butter inside the “head.”

The process of turning these triangles into an octopus is surprisingly easy: cut the end opposite the point into 8 pieces. Then tuck the pointed end under and bunch it up into a ball. Voila!

I asked the girls to help me arrange the myriad legs, but they were really much more interested in adding the eyes.

My 4yo even used the tweezers from her bug collecting kit to place them on. (Don’t worry – we washed them first!)

Here they are, all ready to bake.

You should make sure the legs aren’t touching, but the dough doesn’t spread much during baking, so they can be pretty close.

Also, I baked one tray the full recommended baking time on the package (see above photo) and the other tray a few minutes less (see below).

Undercooking them slightly ensures that the tips don’t brown, but the head will be a bit underdone. Now, that didn’t bother me or my girls at all – but then, neither did the crunchy legs of the fully cooked ones.

The crispy tips didn’t present a problem for us in the least, so really, how long you decide to bake them is up to your personal preference.

And if you want to shape them ahead of time, you can put the octopus-filled, parchment-lined trays in the fridge until you’re ready to bake them. Such as on Halloween. :)