So here's a post about some buns and messy kitchens.
Today being Good Friday, I decided to make some hot cross buns. (Organised people bake them the day before, but I am far from organised at the moment).
Now I've made hot cross buns before, to the recipe my mum uses, but I'd found another recipe (it's here) I wanted to try out (though they're all quite similar!)
So, as I've made them before, I don't really read through the recipe properly just the ingredient list, and checked how long they take to rise (for hot cross buns are made with yeast). It says 2 hours, and I have the afternoon off, so i think 'that's fine i can mix the dough now and bake them later before tea'
So I'm working away, following the recipe, kneading the dough, when I think 'that's funny hot cross buns have dried fruit in and i haven't added those yet'. Check the recipe, and it turns out this one is 'double proved' which means you knead it, let it rise a while, then knead it again and let it rise more before you bake it. So they will actually need 4 hours to rise, not 2. This screws with my meal-timetable slightly (not normally a problem but I have family visiting so I need to be eating at a normal time)
For tea I've planned to have Good Friday Fish (aka smoked haddock) with another recipe I've not read properly. But I look at it and it seems ok... till I notice there's poached eggs in the middle. By this time I'm using about 3 different pans anyway so we decide to leave out the eggs. The recipe says to steam the fish but my 'tiered steamer' consists of a colander over a saucepan so we decide poaching will be quicker to cook the fish properly.
At which point I remember the buns need baking....
So while the fish is poaching and the potatoes are cooking, we split the nicely risen dough into buns (whoops, I should have done that before the second lot of proving. Not that it makes a huge difference but again failing to read words on a page). I put the buns into the oven so that they can bake while tea's being eaten, and check the recipe for how long they need to bake for...
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Brush the buns with a little beaten egg. Mix the remaining flour with enough water to make a thick paste, then transfer to a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle, or use a sandwich bag and snip off one corner. Use the paste to pipe crosses over the buns - this is easiest if you pipe in one big circle, then put a line across the middle of each bun. Bake for 25 mins until golden and cooked through.Hmm... so the crosses were supposed to go on BEFORE I baked them? and the glaze too? whoops.
I blame my mum's recipe for the forgetting to glaze as her buns get glazed after they are baked (with sugar glaze not raw egg), but even hers put the crosses on before they get baked. As the buns had already gone into the oven, and dinner needed eating, I decided to used icing for the crosses instead and the sugar glaze.
Final buns look like this:
 |  |
| They aren't in a ring, either. But that was deliberate. | Tasty tasty buns |
In more successful baking news, last week I made a Simnel cherry tart. I followed the recipe and it was lovely! (Kind of like a bakewell tart with a bit more marzipan). So it's not that I can't follow instructions! I forgot to take any pictures of that before it was eaten though.
