It has not been a good day in the kitchen.  I’m glad I tried that recipe before Easter, not only there is room for improvement, there is also time for improvement.  The recipe I used comes from The Ultimate Chief, Nick, who knows his food and I’m sure those buns in his hands are amazing, mine are shit.

Also, I’ve done something to my Kitchen Aid, my treasured, most beloved piece of cooking gear. I think that dough might have defeated it, which is annoying, cause it’s an American tank for this kind of jobs, maybe too high gear or something? I’m waiting for my own private engineer to come home and diagnose the problem. If I’ve damaged it, I’ll kill myself.

So here’s Nick’s recipe;

1 (7g sachet) fast action bread yeast

180ml warm milk

500g plain flour

80g butter or Stork margarine

pinch of salt

60g caster sugar

2 teaspoons mixed spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 egg, beaten

1(100g bar) dark chocolate, broken up

extra flour for dusting

For the crosses

75g plain flour

75ml water

Few drops of almond extract

Add the dried yeast and warm milk to a large bowl. Cover and set aside for 5 or 10 minutes, until it looks frothy.

Sift the flour into another bowl and use your fingers to rub in the margarine, until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add salt, sugar, spices and candied mixed peel. Pour in the yeast-milk mixture, and add beaten egg and chocolate pieces. Mix to form a dough (it will be sticky).

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 5 – 10 minutes.

Rub some cooking oil around the surface of a large mixing bowl and place the dough in it. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 to 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Knead again for a few minutes, then cut into 12 even sized buns. Place in a deep-sided, lightly greased or lined 23cm (9 inch) baking tin. Cover with tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise again (about 30 to 40 minutes this time). Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C / Gas mark 6.

For the crosses: mix the flour and water together to form a soft paste. Flavour with almond extract (optional). Spoon into a clear plastic sandwich bag. Seal and snip off one of the corners, then pipe crosses onto each bun.

Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown.

Two things that went wrong with my version – the dough hasn’t risen enough, which makes the end product more like a rock cake than a bun. Also, I think they definitely need more sugar. And a glaze, which Nick’s recipe omits, I used apricot jam.

So, the plan is, I’ll make them again tomorrow, but I’ll use strong bread flour, fresh yeast, to increase the chances of the dough rising nicely, as it should do.  And I’ll use more sugar. I’m looking at another recipe, for the more traditional buns, might give that one a go, but I’m determined, there will be home made hot crossed buns this Easter and I’ll see to it. The only thing that can stop me is Izzie deciding to be born.

To be continued.

Yum, just finished the first piece of it. Very nice indeed, if only I could be bothered to get dressed and go get some cream cheese to make the proper topping and make it look great. I decided I can’t be bothered though, as it’s raining, while at home it’s lovely and I have my tea and will just leave the cake  the way it is.

Recipe from GF, picked for its numerous 5 star reviews- that always helps. I’m glad it’s risen nicely and is as light and tasty as promised, I cocked up a few carrot cakes in my life before.

For this one I used 175 g of muscovado sugar, 150 ml of veggie oil, mixed it with 3 beaten eggs. Then I added 175g of grated carrots, a zest of one orange, plus some of that sweet, cooked orange peel I still have from my Mum’s visit for Christmas. 50 g of raisins and same amount of chopped walnuts. Then 175 g of self raising flour with an extra tsp of bicarbonate soda and finally a big fat tsp of cinnamon and a bit less of freshly grated nutmeg. Once I combined all that, I added yet more cinnamon, which I adore on everything, apart from my kitchen rug- I had an accident yesterday and even Dyson didn’t manage to get all of it off.

The cake baked in 180 degrees for 45 minutes, filled the house with great smell. When it cooled a bit, I made the frosting out of some icing sugar, orange juice and the remaining Cointreau I had in the pantry- that bottle lasted me years! The recipe said that it should be as thick as single cream, I don’t like stuff sickly sweet though, so I stopped adding sugar when close to that point.

Very nice cake, the recipe is a keeper, next time though- proper creamy frosting.