Mummy Hot Dogs: Wrapped, Baked and Slightly Haunted

Some Halloween food is truly upsetting. Mummy hot dogs are not. They are the friendliest monsters at the party: a sausage wrapped in pastry bandages, baked until golden, and staring at you with two little mustard eyes. They look like they’ve just woken up from three thousand years of sleep and would like a ketchup.

This is a classic, well-known party recipe, not a secret UglyFood invention, and we haven’t kitchen-tested this exact version ourselves. But it’s about as foolproof as baking gets: if you can wrap a present badly, you can make a mummy. For more Halloween horrors, see our disgustingly delicious Halloween recipes.

Ingredients

• 8 hot dogs (frankfurters), about 450 g / 1 lb
• 1 can (8 oz / 225 g) refrigerated crescent roll dough, or 1 sheet (about 250–275 g) ready-rolled puff pastry
• 1 egg, beaten (optional, for a shinier wrap)
• Yellow mustard or ketchup in a squeeze bottle, for the eyes (or candy eyes for older kids)
• Ketchup for dipping
• Flour for the work surface

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 190 °C / 375 °F and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
2. Pat the hot dogs dry with paper towel. Pastry slides off wet sausages and your mummies will unravel.
3. Unroll the dough on a lightly floured surface. If you use crescent dough, pinch the perforations closed. Cut it into thin strips, about 5 mm–1 cm (¼–⅓ inch) wide.
4. Wrap 1–2 strips around each hot dog, crisscrossing at angles like bandages. Leave a small gap near one end for the face. Stretch the dough a little and leave some loose ends: messy is the point.
5. Place the mummies on the baking sheet, seam side down, and brush the pastry with beaten egg if you like.
6. Bake for 12–15 minutes, until the pastry is golden and puffed and the hot dogs are steaming hot all the way through.
7. Let them cool for 2–3 minutes. Then dot two eyes in the face gap with mustard or ketchup, or press on candy eyes.

How to make it look worse

• Bleeding mummies: make a small cut in the hot dog before wrapping, then fill it with ketchup after baking. It works best on a white platter.
• Tomb burial: serve them half-buried in a “sarcophagus” of mashed potato, with the faces peeking out.
• Uneven bandages: tear the strips by hand instead of cutting them. Ragged, old-looking linen is far creepier than neat ribbons.
• Wrong eyes: use one big eye and one small one, or put the eyes on sideways. Asymmetry is unsettling.
• Swamp dip: mix a little green food coloring into mustard or mayonnaise and call it “ooze.”

Allergy and food-safety notes

• Allergens: the pastry contains wheat (gluten) and often milk, the egg wash is egg, and mustard is a regulated allergen in the EU. Check the labels on your hot dogs too: some contain milk, soy or mustard.
• Heat it through: hot dogs are pre-cooked, but food-safety agencies such as the USDA advise reheating them until they’re steaming hot (74 °C / 165 °F) before eating.
• Small children: whole hot dogs are a well-known choking hazard for young kids. For under-4s, cut the hot dog in half lengthwise and then into small pieces before serving.
• Party table: don’t leave the cooked mummies at room temperature for more than two hours. Refrigerate leftovers and reheat them until hot.

Variations

• Vegetarian or vegan mummies: use plant-based sausages and, for vegan, a dairy-free puff pastry (many supermarket puff pastries are made with oil, but check the label), and brush with plant milk.
• Cheesy mummies: tuck a thin slice of cheese around the hot dog before wrapping.
• Mini mummies: use cocktail sausages and very thin strips. Bake for 10–12 minutes.
• Nordic mummies: try it with a Finnish grill sausage, if you want a mummy with a sauna habit.

Image note: the images in this article were generated with artificial intelligence.