Mary Berry's Hot Cross Buns

Good Friday with great Hot Cross Buns

It's that time of year again! The Easter bunny is getting ready to deliver all those delicious Easter eggs, and we've had our Easter bonnet parade at school (the hot glue gun has never seen so much action!). Now we are busy creating the Easter egg hunt strategy, and marzipan will be in full action in our beautiful Dark Chocolate Marzipan Easter Eggs - have we forgotten anything?

Good Friday!

More excuses for yummy baked goods!

I used to love hot cross buns until four years ago. I was about 9 weeks pregnant with my youngest and I could only eat hot cross buns. Now the smell reminds me of those nauseous weeks - so I'm not as fond as I used to be. But I'm not a quitter. So every year I try to get that love back and I know that a gorgeous batch of these homemade buns will do the job.

This year I'm relying on the queen of cakes - Mary Berry for her fool-proof Hot Cross Buns recipe. I know Mary Berry won't let me down!

Mary Berry's Hot Cross Buns

PREP + RISE TIME	COOK TIME
2 hours 50 mins	20 mins

Makes 12

Ingredients:
500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
75g/2¾oz caster sugar
2 tsp mixed spice powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 lemon, finely grated zest only
10g/¼oz salt
10g/¼oz fast-action dried yeast
40g/1½oz butter
300ml/10fl oz milk
1 free-range egg, beaten
200g/7oz sultanas
50g/1¾oz finely chopped mixed peel
oil, for greasing

For the topping:
75g/2¾oz plain flour
2 tbsp golden syrup, for glazing

HOW TO MAKE:

1. Put the flour, sugar, spices and lemon zest into a large bowl and mix together. Then add the salt and yeast, placing them on opposite sides of the bowl.

2. Melt the butter in a pan and warm the milk in a separate pan. Add the butter and half the tepid milk to the dry ingredients. Add the egg and use your hands to bring the mixture together, incorporating the flour from the edges of the bowl as you go. Gradually add the remaining milk, to form a soft pliable dough (you may not need all of the milk).

3. Tip the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface. Knead by hand incorporating the sultanas and mixed peel into the dough. Lightly knead for 10 minutes until silky and elastic and forming a smooth ball. The kneading can also be done in a food mixer with a dough hook.

4. Oil a bowl and place the dough in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rest in a warm place for about 1½ hours or until doubled in size.

5. Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and divide into 12 balls. Line 1-2 baking trays with paper and place the balls on the tray, placing them fairly close together and flattening them slightly.

6. Slip each baking tray into a large clean polythene bag, making sure the bag doesn’t touch the buns. Leave for 40-60 minutes until the buns have doubled in size.

7. Preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7.

8. For the topping, add the flour to a bowl with 100ml/3½fl oz water. Mix together to make a paste and spoon into the icing bag.

9. When the buns have risen remove the polythene bags and pipe a cross on each bun. Bake for 15-20 minutes until pale golden-brown, turning the baking trays round halfway through if necessary.

10. Melt the golden syrup in a pan and while the buns are still warm, brush the buns with a little syrup to give a nice shine, before setting aside to cool on a wire rack.

Recipe by Mary Berry

How To Make Nigella's Soft White Dinner Rolls

I've made Nigella Lawson's Soft White Dinner Rolls from Nigella's website many times now and they are always lovely. The children adore these little rolls that are super hard to resist. They are a real treat with a bowl of hot soup or made into little sandwich rolls - perfect for packed lunches or picnics. I love these toasted with butter and jam. Yum!

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Sourdough Loaf Made Me Fat!

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little, but ever since I've tried his recipe - I've been hooked. Simply the best bread ever. I've even forgiven Hugh for breaking my Magimix (with one of his recipes - he didn't actually come round and start smashing it up - just needed to point that out), because since that incident, I've been making bread by hand and it is so much better than the Magimix version - and with all that kneading, it's been getting rid of my bingo wings (stomach's still as fat though!).

A gorgeous sourdough loaf

So, after deciding I was going to give refined carbs a wide birth, along came this little beauty. I'll try it with wholemeal flour tomorrow and then I can feel a bit more righteous!

It takes a bit longer to make this loaf, but it's definitely worth it. I used the Cheaty Yeasty Sponge Loaf recipe from his Everyday book, but as we speak I'm growing my own starter (a fermenting batter that has grown its own yeast) to make all my future sourdough loafs. And I'm doing it mainly because it's a whole lot cheaper than buying some crappy shop-bought loaf with their high salt contents and lots of preservatives. I know how much salt is in my bread and I know that there are no nasties either. It's also cheaper than buying yeast and I can make sure I'm using high quality organic flour. What can I say? I'm a control freak who likes to know exactly what I'm giving my kids!

Here's Hugh's cheaty recipe:

The night before you are going to make the loaf, mix 250g strong flour with 5g fast acting yeast, then beat in 325ml warm water to form a thick batter. Cover with cling flim and leave to ferment overnight. The next morning add another 250g of flour and 10g fine sea salt, then knead. The dough will seem stickier than usual at first, but this is normal. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead. Push the dough away from you to make a long stretch and fold it back. Keep going with the stretching and folding, giving a quarter turn every few stretches until it's silky and smooth. This should take about 10 minutes.

Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn it so it gets a light coating of oil. Cover with lightly oiled cling film, or put the bowl inside a plastic bag, and leave to rise, until it has more or less doubled in size and feels springy when you push your finger gently into it. Knock it back (deflate it) on a lightly floured surface.

You now need to prove the dough (i.e., give it a second rising). You are also going to be forming it into the shape it will be for baking. If you have a proper baker's proving basket, use this, first dusting it generously with flour. Alternatively, rig up your own proving basket by lining a medium-sized, fairly shallow-sided bowl with a clean tea towel, then dusting it with flour. Place your round of dough inside, cover again with oiled cling film or a clean plastic bag and leave to rise, in a warm place this time, until roughly doubled in size. This might be only an hour or it could be three or four. Then the dough is ready to bake.

Preheat the oven to 250°C/gas mark 9 (or at least 220°C/gas mark 7, if that's your top limit). Have ready, if possible, a clean gardener's spray bottle full of water - you'll be using this to create a steamy atmosphere in the oven, which helps the bread to rise and develop a good crust. (You can achieve the same effect with a roasting tin of boiling water placed on the bottom of the oven just before you put the loaf in - but the spray bottle is easier.)

About five minutes before you want to put the loaf in the oven, put a baking tray in the oven to heat up. Take the hot baking sheet from the oven, dust it with flour, and carefully transfer the risen dough to it by tipping it out of the proving basket/bowl, upside down, on to the sheet. Slash the top of the loaf a few times with a very sharp, serrated knife (or even a razor blade).

Put the loaf into the hot oven and give a few squirts from the spray bottle over and around it. After 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 200°C/gas mark 6, give the oven another spray, and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the well-browned loaf vibrates and sounds hollow when you tap its base. Leave to cool completely, on a rack, before you plunge in with the bread knife.

Hugh's Christmas Bread Recipe Broke My Magimix!

I can't believe it. My beloved Magimix is broken and it's all down to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Christmas Bread Recipe. And what's worse is the fact I've lost my receipt for the Magimix, so I can't get it fixed under my 3 year guarantee. Absolutely gutted. But I will persist with making this bread because it looks lovely. If you missed it - here's the recipe!

I'll let you know if I make it successfully!

Ingredients
75g raisins
125g sultanas
50g dried apple, roughly chopped
2-3 tbsp apple brandy
500g strong white flour
150ml warm milk
100g butter, softened
100g golden caster sugar
2 medium eggs
7g dried yeast
1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
2 tsp mixed peel
1 tsp preserved stem ginger
Zest ½ orange

Method
Put the raisins, sultanas and dried apple in a mixing bowl, pour over the brandy and leave to steep overnight. Put the flour, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, yeast, salt, spices and vanilla into a mixing bowl. Combine everything together and knead for 10 minutes until the mixture is smooth and elastic. Leave the dough in a warm place to rise until doubled in size. 

Once the dough has risen, knock back and place the dough on a work surface and pat out flat. Sprinkle the fruit, nuts, mixed peel, ginger and orange zest over the dough and roll up. Gently knead the dough to incorporate the fruit and nuts.

Divide the dough into seven pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Place the balls into a buttered and flour-dusted 20cm cake tin. Loosely cover with cling and leave to prove in a warm place for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 160°C/gas mark 2½ and bake the bread for 45-60 minutes.

Oatcakes

You can't beat a lovely oatcake, and I'm not talking about the biscuits. These are oaty pancakes that are lush. They are so easy to make and great to freeze too. Try them with melted cheese and ham in the middle, or with a fried egg and beans, or toast one up with jam or golden syrup - you just can't go wrong!

Ingredients
225g fine oatmeal (or wizz up porriage oats in the blender)
225g wholewheat or plain flour
1 tsp salt
sachet of dried yeast
450ml warm water
450ml warm milk
1 tsp sugar

HOW TO MAKE
Boil the kettle and measure out 450ml of boiling water. Now add 450ml of cold milk to the mix.

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and gradually mix in the water and milk until you have a smoothish consistency.

Cover and leave to rise for 1 hour.

Fry the oatcakes in a little oil. Once the mixture forms bubbles and dries out in the pan - turn over a cook for another couple of minutes.