Giant Sticky Hot Cross Buns

It seems like hot cross buns are everywhere; in stores, in tweets, in blogs! In sticking with my current yeast facination I have chosen to make yeasted hot cross buns. I found this lovely recipe on iky200306's blog. Go check out her recipe, her hot cross buns look perfect!

The recipe said the dough should be shaped into 12 balls. Not being one to disregard direct instructions I made 12 balls. What did I get? 12 GIANT HOT CROSS BUNS! The buns turned out so giant that next time I will shape the dough into 24 balls. Those crosses of mine could also do with a bit more practice!

The end product went down well with all my beta testers ("Ten out of ten for the hot cross bunnies produced in tiny oven. :-D"). The only problem I had with these buns were photographing them! Anyone have ideas on how to dress up a hot cross bun? Next time I will experiment with a bit more mixed spice in the dough.

Hot Cross Buns
Makes 12-24

• 1kg Bread flour
  
• 10ml Salt
  
• 10g Instant yeast
  
• 80ml Sugar
  
• 5ml Ground cinnamon
  
• 15ml Mixed spice
  
• 60g Butter, melted
  
• 200ml Warm milk
  
• 375ml Warm water
  
• 1 Egg
  
• 250ml Raisin & sultana mix
  

Crosses

• 60ml Cake flour
  
• 15ml Oil
  
• Enough water to make a paste
  

Glaze

• 100ml Apricot jam
  
• 200ml Water
  
• 5ml Ground cinnamon
  
• 10ml Sugar
  

1. Mix all the dry ingredients except the raisins together.
   
2. Beat milk, butter and egg together, add to the dry ingredients.
   
3. Add water gradually until the dough is soft, not sticky. (water quantity is what I used, you may need more or less depending on your location and weather)
   
4. Knead dough for 3 minutes. Add raisins and knead further for 3 minutes.
   
5. Place dough in an oiled plastic bag, leave in a warm area to rise until doubled in size (about 40minutes).
   
6. Remove dough and knock it down. Shape the dough into balls and place into a well greased dish. (12 balls were too large for me, 16-20 is probably better). Cover and leave to rise for 20 minutes.
   
7. Mix ingredients for the crosses. Pipe on to the dough just before baking.
   
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 30 minutes or until the buns are golden brown.
   
9. Boil ingredients for the glaze together until it reaches the consistency of syrup.
   
10. While the buns are cooling, brush the tops with the glaze. Glaze the tops another 2 times before digging in!
    

Rasberry Balsamic Roasted Butternut, Spicy Chicken and Couscous Salad

Phew, what a mouthful! At the recent South African Food Bloggers Conference I received a bottle of Rasberry Balsamic Vinegar Reduction with Lemon Infused Olive Oil from Verlaque in my goody bag that I was itching to try out.

The salad is pretty much a combination of anything I could find in my fridge at the time. The result was very tasty, the olive oil flavour was subtle but definitely there although in my eyes you can't go wrong with butternut! For a salad you don't really need to be as precise with your ingredient quantities as with baking so the values I list are really only a rough estimate of what I used.

Rasberry Balsamic Roasted Butternut, Spicy Chicken and Couscous Salad
Serves 2

• 2 cups of Butternut cubed
  
• 1 cup of Baby Tomatoes
  
• 1 Purple Onion
  
• Handful of well aged cubed Gouda
  
• 2 cups of mixed leaves(Watercress, Rocket, Red Chard and Mizuna mix)
  
• 0.5 cup of raw couscous prepared according to instructions on packet
  
• 4 Cooked Chicken breasts
  
• Verlaque Splash Rasberry Balsamic Vinegar Reduction with Lemon Infused Olive Oil
  

1. Toss the butternut and tomatoes in some of the olive oil. Place them in an ovenproof dish and roast at 200 degrees celcius for about 30 minutes.
   
2. Cut the onion into rings and fry slowly until soft and sweet.
   
3. Toss the leaves in olive oil just before the butternut is done.
   
4. Assemble your salad however you like!
   

Apple Cake

I am a firm believer that a recipe never needs a much oil/butter as the instructions claim. The original recipe called for 150ml of oil, I reduced it to 100ml and the cake still came out lovely! Win for me! My cake baked for almost an hour before it was ready.

Apple Cake

Topping:

• 2-3 Apples
  
• 3-4 Tablespoons Honey(I used syrup)
  
• 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
  
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar
  

Cake:

• 4 eggs
  
• 200g Sugar
  
• 100ml Oil
  
• 250g Cake Flour
  
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
  
• Pinch of Salt
  

1. Chop apples finely, mix with honey, cinnamon and sugar and leave for 30 minutes
   
2. Beat sugar and eggs until fluffy.
   
3. Add oil, sift in dry ingredients and mix well.
   
4. Drain the apples, reduce the liquid to a syrup in a pan.
   
5. Pour batter into greased 25x30cm pan. Sprinkle the apples on top of the batter. Lastly drizzle the syrup over the apples.
   
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius for 30 minutes.
   

The kitchen unfortunately is not a very pretty place for taking pictures, outside is much nicer!

Buttermilk Cluster

Recently I have become interested in using yeast in recipes. Yeast, the baking ingredient shrouded in mystery, feared by many, used by few. My interest in yeast started when I was in Belgium and found a block of fresh yeast (something I have been told existed in my grandmothers time but sadly I have never seen on local store shelves). In Belgium I tried my hand at cinnamon rolls. They exceeded my expectations and thus my fear of yeast started to subside.

Fast forward back to sunny South Africa where I found a bread recipe that looked idiot proof enough. I had a bit of trouble combining the flour with the wet ingredients, but that was just because my mixing bowl is a bit undersized. The yeast performed well, the dough rose even better than I expected (although the day was exceptionally hot).

The only criticism I have is that the bread was a little bland to my taste. Next time I'll add a bit more salt to the recipe and perhaps more honey. As you can see I didn't have a round dish, the oval one worked just fine though! The egg wash on my bread look a bit spotty because I don't have a proper egg brush either (the life of a student..!).



Buttermilk Clusters

• 750g Bread flour
  
• 0.5 Tablespoon salt
  
• 2.5 Teaspoons dry yeast
  
• 1 Tablespoon warm water
  
• 2 Cups buttermilk
  
• 1 Tablespoon honey
  

Extra: 1 egg for glaze, oats or bran for topping

1. Combine water and yeast, leave for 10 minutes (bubbles will form).
   
2. Combine flour and salt.
   
3. Pour yeast mixture, buttermilk and honey into the flour mixture.
   
4. Knead dough for 10 minutes.
   
5. Cover dough and let it rise until it is double in size, or 90 minutes.
   
6. Divide dough in 12-18 pieces, shape then into balls and place into a round 30cm dish close together.
   
7. Cover dough and let it rise for 45 minutes.
   
8. Brush dough with egg wash and sprinkle with topping
   
9. Bake for 30min at 200 degrees celcius. When the bread is done it will sound hollow when knocked on.
   

The Tiny Oven

This is the tiny oven that I have to my disposal. It may not be much but it's mine! As I'm living in a student house, this spacious 25l oven is pretty much the best I can do at the moment.