Hot Cross Buns

Well, it's that time of year again when everyone starts talking about my buns: "The best buns I've ever had!" "The finest buns I've tasted" and even "do you really have a couple buns in the oven??"

It is not, of course, my svelte physique they speak of, but my Hot Cross Buns. One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns.  Hey...wait a minute...what kind of crazy price structure is that?

If there is one recipe I associate with Lent and Easter it is Hot Cross Buns. Our local supermarket where I grew up in Cleveland used to sell a fantastic sweet version each year, and we always cheered when we first saw them on the bakery table. The usual British hot cross bun is barely sweetened at all, and is more of a spiced bread roll, usually served toasted and buttered. This recipe is different - it is an adapted from a stollen recipe, omitting the almonds and adding in spices. It is an incredibly rich dough, resulting in a most wonderful treat which usually gets people to surround you asking for the recipe.

Just make sure you have a full day to play with before you tackle these babies - it is no quickie, and it gets very messy if you don't have a stand mixer with a dough hook.

I was dealing with a toddler, so I took some photos along the way, just not photos of every step.

So first, I blended some yeast with some warm milk plain flour, and sugar. This is to form a kind of sponge base for the dough. I let this sit out for a while in the Springtime sun.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl I got what I needed to add next ready: eggs, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest. Orange zest is nice too, but I usually just use lemon.

Also, soaking over on the side I had some sultanas that I covered with water and heated until they boiled. I then drained them and added some brandy and mixed candied peel.

And in yet ANOTHER bowl, I mixed up the bread flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cardamom.

After an hour or so the dough had doubled and looked bubbly like a sponge, so I threw on the egg mixture.

Then stirred the gloopy mix for a while.

I then added the bread flour mixture.

And I kneaded the relatively sticky dough for 10 minutes or so. Normally I'd add a bit more flour at this stage to reduce stickiness, but I really tried to do that as little as possible here to ensure the dough remained moist enough. It meant a fair amount of use of my dough scraper and sticky hands for a while. It was worth it.

Oh, by the way, this is NOT a low fat recipe. I was doing a double batch, so on went the very soft butter. Here is where things get really messy and you wish you had a stand mixer with a dough hook.

After lots of mess and sticky kneading, my dough looked like this. You are aiming for a fairly uniform dough, but it is mighty sticky.

I then added in the fruit mixture until it was distributed throughout.

Then I put it in a bowl and let it rise.

Oh, it can rise dramatically during this time, by the way.

After punching it into submission, I put it in the fridge. Here you can put it in anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight. I used to always do it overnight, but I noticed I get a better rise if I only do it for half an hour or so, as being in the fridge overnight chills the dough so much it takes forever to get it back to room temperature again the next day, and you will not have patience for that in the morning. Ideally you just want to chill it long enough so that it is easier to handle.I then shaped it into balls on a baking tray.

Then I let them rise and gave them and eggwash before putting them in the oven. Children are good at helping with this step too.

Oh, man, they may not look pretty, but trust me here, these will make you friends.

I then waited until they were cool, then mixed up a simple lemon butter icing glaze with lemon juice, icing sugar and a wee bit of butter and squirted it out through the corner of a ziplock bag to make the crosses. Sometimes I just use lemon juice and icing sugar, but I had some butter lying out anyway, so I used the butter just to give the icing a bit more structure.

Good Friday just got even better.

HOT CROSS BUNS

adapted from  Joy of Cooking

Hot Cross Buns

Place in a small saucepan with enough cold water to cover by 1cm: 160g raisins Bring the water to the boil, then drain well. Transfer the raisins to a medium bowl. Add: 50g mixed candied peel Sprinkle with: 3 Tablespoons dark rum or other spirits Cover and let the fruits soak for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 days. Meanwhile, to prepare the sponge, combine in a large mixing bowl or the bowl for a heavy duty mixer: 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast 175ml whole milk, warmed to 40-46 degrees C Let stand until the yeast is dissolved, about 5 minutes

Add: 210g plain flour 45g sugar

Mix by hand or on low speed until the dough is smooth. Cover with clingfilm and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours.

Add to the sponge: 2 eggs, lightly beaten 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract grated zest 1 lemon 1 tsp salt

Mix by hand or on low speed. Stir in: 210g bread flour 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg 1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp cardamom

When the dough comes together, knead by hand for about 10 minutes or with the dough hook on low to medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky.

Now things get messy:

Work in: 200g very soft butter

Vigorously knead in the butter until completely incorporated and the dough is once again smooth. Add the raisin mixture.

Knead just until all the fruits and nuts are incorporated. The dough should be soft and moist. Place the dough in a buttered large bowl. Cover with clingfilm and let rise until nearly doubled in volume, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Punch the dough down and knead briefly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 12 hours.

Punch the dough down and let rest 10 minutes. Form into buns on a greased baking sheet, cover loosely oiled clingfilm and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes. The dough does not have to fully double in volume; a 3/4 rise is enough.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees

Bake for about 15 minutes, until lightly browned. When cooled, glaze a cross shape with a simple glaze of icing sugar and lemon juice.

"Key" Lime Pie and Limey, Peanutty, Sweet Potato Gratin

I was never a massive fan of key lime pie in the past, finding it a bit too sickly sweet on the whole. If I'm going to choose a citrus pie, I'll usually opt for lemon meringue. My North Caroline sister-in-law is different; she is a key lime pie fanatic, happily ordering it night after night when on vacation. So this past summer, when we went to visit her, I thought I should give key lime pie another chance. Costco provided us with a huge bag of limes, and I tried a recipe out of Joy of Cooking. The recipe worked, and what I really marvelled at was its simple list of ingredients, making this a relatively easy recipe to whip up on vacation when you are in a self-catering kitchen (or simply someone else's kitchen) where equipment and ingredients are scarce. It's even easier if you can buy a ready made crust (though it will taste better if you make your own, because then you get to use a more flavoursome oil to bind it than the vegetable oil the ready made crust uses).

So yes, you just make a basic crumb crust with bashed up digestives/graham crackers, depending on the country you are in, sugar, and butter and lazily pat it into the pie plate. I had a toddler on my hip, so my crumbs weren't that finely bashed, but it held up well enough. Aliens provided me with pie crust circles.

Then in bowl just put 4 egg yolks (leaving the perfect number of egg whites to make the macaroons on my imported bag of shredded coconut...or enough to make a meringue on top the pie if you prefer) and whisk them up with...

A regular sized can of condensed milk. Yes, anything with condensed milk is going to be good.

Plus the zest of four limes (or omit this if catering for zest-a-phobes like my SIL, or if you don't have a zester in the kitchen)

Then take your four limes sitting battered on the chopping board, one of which is covered in goop because you dropped it in the bowl earlier...

And juice them to add to the mix.

That's it. You just mix these all together...

Then pour into the crust and bake at a low temp for 16-20 minutes until it jiggles in the middle like jello. Cool it and stick it in the fridge to set further. How easy is that?! Just have some whipped cream on hand to serve it. But, limes, I am not done with you, no no no...

I used them in this baby too. I sliced a kilo of sweet potatoes thinly in the food processor and put them in a bowl with about a cup of cream, a wee bit of oil, a chopped chilli, some garlic, and some salt and pepper. Then I spread half in a roasting tray gratin dish.

Then I put the zest of a lime and a couple teaspoons of its juice along with some crunch peanut butter in globules on top of it.

Then on top went the rest of the sweet potatoes.

And then the cream that was left in the bowl.

Then I baked it up to make a peanutty, sweet potato gratin. Not bad, and it reheats really well too.

So bag yourself a sack of limes today and whip these up. Or just pin this and go order a pizza. Whichever works for you. I wonder if Domino's still does a Wednesday special in Northfield...

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Today we honour St Patrick for ridding Ireland of snakes, making everyone wear green, and for introducing us to chocolate Guinness cake.

Well, none of that may be true, but I feel like I need an excuse to make this cake, and what better reason than St Patrick's Day. It's really not celebrated much here in Scotland compared to the American towns of my youth, though pubs certainly like to advertise specials on Irish beers when this holiday hits the calendar. I feel this is one of those cakes that really does taste as good as it looks. It is rich and damp in texture without being overly sweet or gaggingly rich, and the creamy topping balances everything nicely, both in flavour and in its appearance, bringing out the deep black of the stout infused cake.

And what's even better is that things don't need to be room temperature before you begin, as you just make it all in a pot before pouring it into a springform tin for the oven.

We started with the best ingredients available...yes, no less than Tesco everyday value butter and Lidl's finest plain flour. I am using vanilla paste more than extract lately not necessarily out of any preference for the flavour, but because of licensing laws. You see, here you can't buy alcohol before 10am, and I like to do my visits to the supermarket just after dropping off children at school and nursery, usually around 9am. What this means is that I can't buy vanilla extract at this hour, as it contains alcohol, but I  can buy vanilla paste, which doesn't have any booze. So hooray for vanilla paste.

First I measured 250ml of Guiness. You'll notice my pyrex jug uses Imperial pints.

Into a pot went the beer with some butter. This is not what Harry Potter gets served in Diagon Alley.

Once that was all melted together I added cocoa and sugar.

It was a bit whisk-y, but I did it anyway.

Then I added sour cream, eggs, and vanilla.

And last but not least, the flour and baking soda. As nigella says, it's like a gingerbread without the spices.

All that was stirred up until it looks combined enough to make me happy. Then I carefully poured it into a springform tin I had lined with greaseproof baking paper and put it in the oven. It took a long time to cook.

But eventually it came out looking like this! It did sink slightly, even with the knife coming out clean when I tested it, but I was ready and hoping for that, as it means it won't end up dried out inside. Again, very like gingerbread.

Once it had cooled (a couple hours later) I put some cream cheese in a bowl. Some of it was Philadelphia, the rest was "classic cream cheese" from Lidl.

This is it looking slightly more appetising after meeting my electric egg beaters.

Over it went some icing sugar.

And it was whipped again, just like Devo said to do.

Go forward, move ahead...to the cream.

Until it was "spreadable consistency".

Onto the cake it went. I was tempted to just leave it like this but I couldn't resist using my palette knife.

So I gave it a rough smoothing out before returning my attention to dinner preparations. I'll get back to posting dinner stuff again sometime, but just not today. Because today is St Patmeonthebackrick Day, where you drink green beer and eat chocolate Guinness cake. Really.

And, if you want to recreate this experience at home, just follow these instructions: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086

Gingerbread with Lemon and Candied Ginger Glaze

The end of the world is upon us: floods, blizzards, parcel slips saying "sorry we missed you" when you only left the house for FIVE MINUTES...

Oh, to be in a happy place, like Cherry Tree Lane, accompanying Mary Poppins on her daily errands to the piano tuner's and then to Mrs Cory's shop for some gingerbread. 

GINGERBREAD, YES! 

Not gingerbread cookies (yes, Elizabeth, I will be trying your recipe sometime soon, hopefully) but gingerbread cake, with a lemon topping to cut through the heaviness of the spices. Easily to slice up and serve to the masses, this is a winner.

First, the gathering. I honestly only do this these days if I'm blogging the recipe, usually it is just a frenzied grabbing out the cupboards as I go.

Into the pot went the sugar, butter, fresh ginger, spices, and molasses. I do get annoyed with ginger measurements in recipes that talk about Tbsp, tsp, etc. Do they mean before or after it is grated? II never know, and I suspect different cooks measure it different ways. I much prefer when they say to peel and grate an inch/half inch long piece. The recipe I had called for dark treacle and golden syrup, but I just added their liquid measures together and used molasses because it seemed easier. And I greased the measuring cup before I poured the molasses in, because that makes it a heck of a lot easier to get it out.

I heated it up until everything melted together.

Like so.

I turned off the heat, then in went some milk.

And some eggs, pre-beaten

It's all very wintery up in this pot. Not so much outside - Scotland seems to have been spared most of the arctic fury this year.

The gooey mass then gets poured into the flour and leavening agent.

Then lots of stirring takes place to make sure to get rid of pockets of powder. Cause I've not done that before and it hasn't been pretty. It is a very liquid batter.

It also goes into a fairly large pan. I've had a few gingerbreads overflow in my time, so I like to err on the side of caution here.

I checked it 10 minutes early, and low and behold it was already done. Like this, with some powdered sugar maybe on top would be fine, but I like a little something extra.

I took the icing sugar I needed and put it in with some crystalized ginger. This, I confess, was a bad move. I should have just chopped the ginger separately. You'll see why later.

I pulsed it to get the ginger into smaller pieces.

Then I poured in some lemon juice.

Unfortunately, the result looked like someone had been sick all over the cake, not what I was looking for. I should have just done the glaze on its own, then sprinkled little pieces of chopped ginger on top of it. Live and learn.

The big flaps of paper sticking up the sides did mean it was easy to take out of the pan for cutting.

See what I mean? It doesn't look at all appetizing at this stage.

Mind you, like this, it looks just perfect. Tea, please.

You'll find a link to Nigella's original recipe here.