For this year’s hot cross buns, I made them using Dan Lepard’s Spicy Stout Buns, which were very tasty.
I used the Kenwood, so it was slightly easier than the kneading by hand – at the mixing stage, bung the lot into the bowl with the dough hook, and knead it a bit, and then follow the 10 min – rest phases too. This whole recipe was on the large size for the Kenwood, but just about all fit in the bowl.
But the cooking time wasn’t right for my oven. I knocked five minutes off the time and used the temp for fan ovens, and still it burned.
And, as per the joke doing the rounds on the internets, I made some of them into “AV Buns” instead of crossed buns. Piping flour and water is a right pain!
Here’s last year’s attempt – I just made a small batch then as I was dieting. Now that I’m thin (hem hem) I made a full batch that made 14 buns.
(PS another interesting looking recipe is this one on Bakery Bits, but like all their interesting recipes, it’s mainly there to sell you stuff only Bakery Bits sell…)
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Not as evenly sized as your mother’s bread rolls – perhaps halving and halving and halving the mix would produce more similarly sized buns and help with the problem of smaller ones burning?
Syringe or squeezy bottle probably easier than piping for delicate work?
tempted to have a go at something similar but A doesn’t eat dried fruit…
Am a bit OCD and actually weigh my dough for rolls now, so all same size!!!
These miserable efforts just go to show why he failed to win when he appeared on Channel 4’s “Come Dine With Me”. Alex, perhaps you should stick to politics and forget the cookery!
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