hot cross buns

Happy Jesus day, everyone! Let's eat  food!

I've been wanting for a while to venture into baking with yeast, and what better time to start than the anniversary of Jesus dying and coming back to life? This recipe is (surprise!) from AWW.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp dried yeast

1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar

1 1/2 cups (375ml) warm milk

4 cups (600g) plain flour

1 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

60g butter

1 egg

3/4 cup (120g) sultanas (I used more like 1 cup--I like my buns sultana-y)

Flour paste:

1/2 cup (75g) plain flour

2 tsp caster sugar

1/3 cup (80ml water) approximately

Glaze:

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp gelatine

1 tbsp water

Method:

1.  Combine yeast, sugar and milk in small bowl or jug. Be fussy about measuring the yeast—it’s important for success. Cover, stand in warm place about 10 mins or until mixture is frothy.

So far, so good.

  2. Sift flour and spices into large bowl; rub in butter.

Although the recipe calls for room temperature butter, my pastry-making adventures tell me this could get gooey so I use refrigerated. That, and I didn't think ahead. 

Stir in yeast mixture, egg and sultanas. 

Don't make the mistake I did and stir the yeast mixture in completely before adding egg and sultanas--you'll need the milk to help mix the egg in with ease.

Use a wooden spoon until mixture becomes too stiff, then use your hands. Mix into a soft sticky dough. Cover with plastic wrap, then a tea towel. Stand in warm place about 45 mins or until dough has doubled in size. 

3. Grease 23cm square slab cake pan or deep 23cm square cake pan

4. Turn dough onto floured surface; knead about 5 mins or until the dough is smooth, elastic and the sultanas appear to be popping out. Divide dough into 16 pieces (if you can be bothered, weight each portion), knead into balls. Place balls into pan; cover, stand in warm place about 10 mins or until buns have risen to top of pan. This will take about 15 minutes, depending on the temperature of the kitchen and the dough. 

5. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 220C/200C fan-forced.

6. To make flour paste, Combine flour and sugar in a cup. Gradually blend in enough of the water to form a smooth paste. Place in piping bag fitted with small plain tube (I used a zip-lock bag with the corner cut off), pipe crosses on buns. Be generous with the crosses as the buns will rise even further.

7. Bake buns about 20 mins. Turn buns, top-side up, onto wire rack. They should be well-browned and when turned out, should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom with your fingers.

8. To make glaze, stir ingredients in small saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar and gelatine are dissolved. 

Seeing as Coles had run out of gelatine (everybody had the same idea as me--losers) I only had leaf gelatine left over from an abandoned Christmas idea. Now if you're not familiar with the Great Leaf Versus Powdered Gelatine Debate, don't bother because it's ridiculous. Basically, conversion from leaf to powdered gelatine is one of the oldest mysteries of civilization and we are no closer to an answer. So, I did a bit of reading, took a guess and decided one leaf of gelatine (mine is titanium strength). Dissolving it in water didn't work at all so I ended up chucking a sheet in the saucepan with the sugar and water and it worked okay, I just need to stir for ages. 

Brush hot buns with hot glaze. Cool on wire rack. 

Verdict: Effing delicious. I love Jesus.

egg-free ginger jumble cake

 

Going to eat delicious homemade Indian food at a friend's place. Obviously, a good guest brings dessert. What does a good guest do when one of host's children has a severe egg allergy? Go to the 'Allergy-Free Baking' section of AWW, of course!

Ingredients:

185g butter, chopped coarsely

¾ cup (180ml) golden syrup

½ cup (100g) firmly packed brown sugar

¾ cup (180ml) water

2 ¼ cups (335g) plain flour

1 ½ tsp bicarb soda

1 ½ tbsp ground ginger

1 ½ tsp mixed spice

¼ tsp ground clove

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Grease 23cm square slab cake pan; line base with baking paper

2. Stir butter, golden syrup, sugar and water in medium saucepan over heat without boiling, until butter is melted; cool 10 minutes.

My new 23cm tin. It's so amazing. It has a removable base.

Stir in sifted flour, soda and spices. Pour mixture into pan.  

This whole stirring-flour-into-liquid idea was a bit of a disaster. Stir the liquid into the flour with a whisk, instead.

3. Bake cake about 40 mins. Stand cake in pan 5 mins. Turn top-side up onto wire rack to cool. 

Check the cake after about 30 mins, as mine didn't take the full 40 to cook.

Verdict: Not the best cake for kids, as the flavours are warm and spicy and a little rich. But the cooking legend who made our dinner was impressed, so that's enough for me!

raspberry coconut slice

It's slice time with Eds! This was the only thing in AWW we had all the ingredients for without leaving the house, cos Baywatch was on.

Ingredients:

90g butter, softened

½ cup (11g) caster sugar

1 egg

¼ cup (35g) self -raising flour

2/3 cup (100g) plain flour

1 tbsp custard powder (Hmmm, no custard powder. My friend google informs me I can use cornflour instead)

2/3 cup (220g) raspberry jam

Coconut topping:

2 cups (160g) desiccated coconut

¼ cup (55g) caster sugar

2 eggs, beaten slightly

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Grease 20cmx30cm lamington tin; line base with baking paper, extending paper 2cm over long sides.

2. Beat butter, sugar and egg in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; stir in sifted flours and custard powder. Spread into pan; spread with jam.

 

3. Combine ingredients for topping in small bowl.

Sprinkle over jam.

 

4. Bake slice about 40 mins; cool in pan before cutting.

Verdict: Quick, easy and delicious! The absence of custard powder was not an issue at all. Extra amazeballs when eaten fresh out of the oven.

peanut butter spice cake

You know when you get a puppy and he's really cute but really badly behaved so you get your dog behaviourist friend to come visit you and teach you how to raise a nice dog, and you feel bad about her travelling such a long way so you make a peanut butter cake? That's what happened to me.

Ingredients:

30g butter, softened

¾ cup caster sugar

5tbsp smooth peanut butter (at room temperature)

1 large egg

1 1/3 cups self raising flour

Pinch salt

½ tsp each ground cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger

¼ tsp ground cloves

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk soured with 1 tbsp lemon juice)

Method:

1.  Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in peanut butter. Add eggs and mix well.

I only had raw caster sugar so the creaming part wasn't very creamy. Either that or therejust isn't enough butter in the mixture for it to cream.

I didn't have any cloves so I was a little heavy-handed with the rest of the spices.

2. Sift together flour, salt and spices and fold alternately into creamed mixture with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Turn batter into greased and floured 20cm (8in) square cake tin and place in a preheated moderate oven (180C).

3. Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Let cake cool in tin on wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out to cool completely. Serve plain, orice with chocolate icing. 

Verdict: Pretty yummy, but would have been better if the only peanut butter I had wasn't hippy peanut butter that contains only peanuts and no added sugar or salt. I added a little extra salt to make up for this, but it still tasted a little wholesome. Also, the peanut butter was crunchy so the texture was a bit weird. Very moist and fluffy though!