Category Archives: Buns

Blueberry Muffins here too!

In the best (worst?) tradition of see something and want it now a post from Sally BR at the Bewitching Kitchen hit my inbox last night.  Some not so sublimal message went straight to my brain…..

Copycat muffins

‘Oh yes!’ , I thought, ‘Blueberry muffins, I want them and I want them now!’ –  (after a virtuous light supper of broadbeans and tomato passata on pasta).  Thank you Sally!  Sometimes reading my friends’ blogs is just what I need to prompt getting out the mixing bowl!

I went outside and inspected my very small blueberry plant, there were exactly 6 ripe blueberries on it.  Not quite enough for a batch of these, in fact, let’s be honest, I have never grown more than a  handful of these and the dogs have a habit of hoovering them off the plant anyway when they think I’m not looking.

As I have a mild phobia about translating cups to grams, I made them this way…

and I made them very fast.
250 grams plain flour
170 grams golden caster sugar
2 tsps baking powder

2 eggs
150 grams full fat yoghurt
grated fresh lemon zest
100 ml unsweetened soya milk
50 grams melted butter (as used full fat yoghurt reduced the butter- but you could use more like 100 grams if you are using low fat yoghurt I guess)

200 grams big fat blueberries

I sieved the dry ingredients together.

Beat the eggs, yoghurt, and soya milk together gently. Didn’t have buttermilk or much yoghurt left so added soya milk which seemed to work fine.

Added the lemon zest.

Melted the butter in another pan.

Then mixed the dry ingredients with the eggy/milk/yoghurt  mix, drizzled the cooling butter in on top, gave that a quick stir, till the butter was just mixed in,  folded the blueberries in. Plopped it into 11 muffin cases. I’ve realised that if you use one less muffin case, you get bigger muffins and  they look more convincing.
Baked them at 160 C on Fan setting for 25 minutes.

Eaten approx 15 minutes after they came out of the oven.

Watered the veg bed, admired the rainbow, went to bed.

Rainbow at bedtime

Cardamom and cinammon owl-faced buns

From a recipe by Tessa Kiros in her lovely book Falling Cloudberries

250 ml  warmish milk
100 g golden or white caster sugar
25 g fresh yeast or 2 sachets of easy dried
1 lightly beaten egg
125g soft butter
2 tsp ground cardamom seed
1 tsp salt
650 grams of plain flour or a mixture of brown and white. I used some fine emmer flour in mine about 50 grams

For the filling

2 tsp. ground cinammon
50g grams caster sugar
80 grams of soft spreadable butter, divided in to 4 lots of 20 grams
Egg for eggwash and sugar to sprinkle on top.

Mix dough.  If you use fresh yeast then mix in with the milk and sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients, butter, egg, spices and salt and finally add the flour to that. If you are using dried active yeast then you can add that with the flour.  Leave for a 2 hour rise.
This makes a quite soft but not too sticky dough that is something like the density of pastry.

The filling, mix the cinammon and sugar together. Keep the butter separate.

Divide the dough into portions of about 300 grams each. You should have 4 portions.

The tricky part:

Roll each one out to an oblong as if you were doing pastry. about 20 x 25 cms and 3 ml thick.  With a palette knife, spread the butter evenly over the dough. Sprinkle 1/4 of the cinammon sugar mix over this.  Roll the dough up longways to make a long roll. Repeat for the other portions.
You can cut this as straight slices and put on tray to bake or you can cut the slices at an angle so you get fat truncated triangles. You cut the slices on the diagonal, alternating the direction to get this.

Hopefully this rather rubbish drawing will give you a further clue ! Drawing bit of my wp programme is a bit basic.

Then you put each triangle down on its fat or bottom edge,

this is what it will look like. A lot like an owl!

and press it down quite flattish, squash it down really well, almost further than you think you should.  Repeat with the rest.  See the bottom of this post for a link to Celia’s post and more photos on how this works. Celia’s present to me!  I got about 24 little buns from this. Leave to rise on a baking paper lined tray for about half an hour while you put the oven on to 180 C conventional or 170 C fan.  Eggwash and sprinkle sugar on top.

Cook for about 10 – 12 minutes till golden. They will feel quite soft when you take them out of the oven, but keep a good eye on them and don’t overcook them.

My variations:

Vanilla sugar and vanilla essence in the buns and choc chips or small chunks either rolled in or mixed in the dough, but easier to roll in in the layers.  Or you could use crystallised ginger and lemon zest,  the traditional taste is cardamom though. Makes you think of Stockholm in winter…. this alternative photo might give you more clues as to how they work… I will take some early stage photos next time I make them, unless someone beats me to it :)

To print this out together with how to do the shaping by Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial click here

OWL BUNS IN SYDNEY…. STOP PRESS….

****EDIT***** The extraordinary food writer Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial has kindly had a go at these and taken some fabulous photos which reveal the mysteries of the cutting and squashing.  It will all make sense once you read her post ! Click here

And when you’ve done that… (This is an untidy post, sorry everyone!) … you can print this pdf file owl rolls which has the recipe and Celia’s photos so it should all be clear finally. Phew! Bet you wish I had done that in the first place! I had a busy week last week :)

PPS  Recently found the original recipe reproduced here with measurements in cups so hope this helps. No drawings and photos though :)

******

Sept 2010: This old post seems to be attracting vast quantities of spam comments, if you want to ask me anything about it please use the contact form (in the menu bar at the top)  as I have switched comments off.

How does an elephant ask for a bun?

Elephant buns

with many thanks to Dan Lepard for teaching me how to make milk breads in the first place and for advice on UHT milk

Sponge

15 g fresh yeast
500 ml  UHT milk – at room temperature or slightly warmer
320 g strong white bread flour

Dough

All of the above plus
a dessert spoon of golden caster sugar
40 g of melted butter
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 medium egg
13 g salt
175 g chocolate chunks and chips
350 g strong white flour

1463 g dough in total

Mix the sponge 2 – 4 hours or so before you want to make the dough. I am currently using a very strong flour which seems to absorb a lot of liquid, you may wish to reduce the amount of milk in the sponge if your flour is not so strong or add more flour to the final dough.

When the sponge has risen and flowed gently all over the worktop, while you were out walking the dogs, scrape it back into a bowl, take a deep breath and add the melted and cooled butter and the egg, vanilla essence and a spoonful of sugar.

Mix these well and then add the rest of the flour, leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes.

Add the chocolate last to the dough; chips, chunks,  whatever you have, try and get them distributed evenly through the dough.

I don’t do intensive kneading if I can avoid it, only enough to make sure the dough is well mixed. Leave for half an hour, come back to it and give it another light knead, oiling the worktop lightly with oil if the dough is very sticky to make it easier to handle. You can do this again later if it makes you feel better, but I forget.

Total time for first prove is about one and a half hours.

Divide dough into 14 balls. You might need  a dusting of flour to help with this part.  Shape and place on baking parchment lined trays. Leave to rise for another hour. Cover the trays with either a plastic box or clingfilm or put them inside a carrier bag and prop it up with something.

Bake at 210 degrees C in an ordinary oven for 22 minutes till golden brown and sound good and hollow when tapped.  Cool on a wire rack,  and brush the tops with a glaze of 2 spoons of boiling water, 2 spoons of sugar and a teaspoon of Fiori di Sicilia ! The air will fill with the glorious perfume  of orange and vanilla and make you think momentarily of Jacobs Club Biscuits and school trips. Actually it’s better than that and a little goes a long way.  Thanks Lynne for that inspiring gift!     Enterprising importers and artisan baking suppliers please note we want you to stock this, please please please! You’ve got until Christmas to sort it out.

To print the recipe click here

I really adore these buns, they look like traditional english bread rolls, but they are soft and rich tasting from the addition of the egg and the butter and have  just enough chocolate in them and a hint of panetonne taste as you take the first bite!

I tell myself they are less fattening than croissants or pain au chocolat with its layers of buttery pastry,  but are still yummy enough to please a fussy elephant!

Answer:  ‘May I have a bun please?’ (muttered coyly from underneath a flowering dandelion :) )