All of this is taken from my Farmhouse Cookery Book - the only things I changed was using a 7g sachet of dried yeast instead of fresh yeast but I still used it in the same way it says in the recipe and also I didn't have any currants so I just used about 125g sultanas plus mixed peel, rather than dried lemon peel...
It is said that in medieval times, bakers marked all their loaves with a cross to ward off evil spirits and encourage the bread to rise. This practice was condemned as 'popish' during the 17th century and dropped. Only buns made on Good Friday continued to bear a cross, in token of the Crucifixion.
Ingredients for 12-13 buns
For the ferment:
1 large egg, beaten
About 215ml warm water (tepid/luke warm)
15g fresh yeast
1 rounded tspn sugar
50g strong white flour
TIP: If you're not sure about the temperature of the water for the ferment, what I do is plunge a jug of cold water into a bowl of just boiled water and allow the temperature of the jug water to come up to hand hot or tepid (lukewarm, blood-warm etc etc) It's a much safer way of making sure it doesn't get too hot.
For the dough:
100/125g currants
25g sultanas
25g chopped, dried lemon peel
450g strong white flour
1 level tspn salt
2-3 rounded tspns ground mixed spice
75g lard (I used Stork!)
75g sugar
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Golden syrup, heated, for glazing
Prepare the ferment by combining the beaten egg with enough warm water to give 275/300ml of liquid. Whisk in the yeast, sugar and flour, cover and put in a warm place for 30 minutes.
Before starting to mix the dough, rinse the currants, sultanas and chopped, dried lemon peel with hot water and spread on kitchen paper in a warm place to drain.
Sieve the flour, salt and spice into a large mixing bowl, rub in the lard and make a well in the centre. Put the sugar and grated lemon rind in the well and pour on the ferment. Gradually draw in the flour and mix vigorously, then knead to a smooth elastic dough.Carefully work in the warm, moist currants, cultanas and lemon peel. shape the dough into a ball, put it in a warm, greased bowl, cover with clingfilm and put to rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
Turn out the dough on to a work surface and knead to knock out any air bubbles and give the dough and even texture. Shape it into a ball again, put back into the bowl, cover and put back to rise for another 30 minutes.
Turn out the dough on to a work surface and divide into 75g pieces. Shape them into balls and leave to rest for 5 minutes on the work surface. roll out the balls into 3 inch (8cm) discs and place on lightly greased baking sheets.
(Cut each disc in to quarters, cutting right through the dough but leaving the quarters touching each other so that as the dough rises it has a well-marked cross on it.)
Put the buns in a warm place to rise for 40 minutes (cover if you like with greased clingfilm). Pre-heat the oven to 240C (475F, Gas Mark 9).
Bake in the pre-heated oven for 6-7minutes, and brush over the buns with hot golden syrup as soon as they are taken from the oven.
The cross on each bun can be made with shortcrust pastry to which water has been added until it is soft enough to pipe through a nozzle. Instead of cutting the discs of dough, pipe a cross of the pastry on to each immediately before baking.
Next time I do this I'm not going to pipe the pastry. I'm just going to make strips of pastry. It didn't really work and I can't really see the difference between the two techniques.
These buns took a long time to make. There is a lot of proving and waiting. But all of this is a process to achieve a final result. Without all the proving and kneading the buns wouldn't rise. And that's how God deals with us. He is the Master Baker, and we are the dough. He takes us, and there's a lot of proving, waiting, knocking back, proving, waiting, knocking back... and finally there is the baking in the hot oven - VERY hot oven! And the final rising achieves a great glory. Hallelujah for buns.
ReplyDelete