Clare's White Chocolate and Apricot Hot Cross Bun Recipe

This is a recipe requires 3 rises before being baked. It is well worth starting this recipe in the morning.


Ingredients


500g strong white bread flour
10g salt
75g caster sugar
10g instant yeast
40g unsalted butter, softened
2 medium eggs, beaten
120ml warm whole milk
120ml cool water
150g white chocolate cut up into chunks (a little bigger than chocolate drops)
120g dried apricots, chopped until into six pieces
2tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 - 1tsp ground cloves
1/2 - 1tsp ground cardamom (or warm milk with crushed cardamom pods and then sieve as I found this hard to find in the shops)
2sp ground nutmeg




For the Crosses


75g plain flour
75ml water


1 egg beaten


For the Glaze


7 apricot jam with 1tbsp boiling water
Or
2tbsp caster sugar mixed with 2tbsp boiling water


Instructions


1) Put the four into  a large mixing bowl. Add  the salt and sugar to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other side. Add the butter, eggs, milk and half of the water and turn the mixture around with your fingers. Continue to add the water, a little at a time until you have picked up all of the flour. You may need a little more water or have a little left over, this will depend on your flour. You want a soft dough  but not a soggy dough.

2) Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and begin the knead. Keep kneading for 5 - 10 minutes until the dough is silky smooth and feels soft with a slight shine. You will know if I is kneaded enough if you pull a bit of dough off and do the window pane test (see pic).  Stretch the dough between your fingers to form a square. If you can se the light though the dough it has ben kneaded enough. If he dough is tearing before you can make a window of dough continue kneading.


3) When the dough is silky soft and smooth, put it into a lightly oiled large bowl. Cover with a tea towel or cling film, and leave to rise for at least an hour or until doubled in size. I tend to rise mine for about 2 - 3 hours at room temperature.


4) After the first  rise, tip the dough onto a lightly floured (or oiled) surface, scatter  the spices, chocolate and apricots on top of the dough a bit at a time and knead in until well incorporated and even.  Put back into the oiled bowl (might need to reapply a little oil) and leave to rise covered in cling film or a teas towel for a second time. This rise will take a little longer than the previous rise as it is having to lift up all of the fruit and chocolate.


5) After this rise, fold the dough inwards repeating until the air has been knocked out. Divide the dough into 100g pieces and roll into balls. To make knead balls you want to fold the dough from the outer edges into the center. Then flip the ball over and use the base of your palms to pinch he bottom of the dough, sealing the edges and making the outer skin of the dough ball tense. Check out this video for instructions! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRk96GA_GF0







6) Place each dough ball onto a baking tray covered in baking paper. Place them about 2 - 3cms apart so that they will just touch one another when they have proved (risen in their final baking shape).


7) Place the baking tray in a poly-bag or two so the dough doesn't form a tough skin while rising. Try to keep the bag from toughing the dough. Leave the dough to rise one final time. When they are ready to go in the oven they will be twice the size of the original balls.


8) Mid way through this rise put the oven onto 200'C to get hot before baking, the best bread goes into a really hot preheated oven.


9) When the dough balls are big enough for cooking (don't rush this stage or they will be nasty and dense!) mix up the  plain flour with the water and make a paste. Put this into a piping bag (if you don't have any make one using baking paper like this http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/technique/how-make-piping-bag or I tend to use a sandwich bag with a snip in a corner). Then pipe in long lines across the touching buns to make the crosses.





10) Finally whip up an egg, add 1tbsp cold water and mix it in. Then using a pastry bush (or old clean paint brush), brush the egg wash over the buns, trying to avoid the crosses as best as possible. This will give the buns a lovely colour in the oven. Leave in the oven for 15 - 20 mins.


11) While the buns are cooking, mix up the glaze, if you are using apricot jam, mix it with 1tbsp boiling water and sieve it has bits in it. Apricot glaze ends up very very sticky. For a sweet but far less sticky glaze mix up caster or granulated sugar with hot water, make sure all of the sugar is dissolved. The moment the buns come out of the oven use a clean pastry brush or old clean paint brush and brush over the glaze. Leave to cool or devour!


 

Bread Beautiful Bread

A new year a fresh start and I am taking that mantra with my bread making! In the past year I have learnt:

1) Fresh yeast is not worth buying, goes off too quickly and is not for me.

2) Sourdough is fun, creative, my husband loves it but is a lot of effort.

3) Old large tubs of fast action yeast is not going to work well.

4) Fresh fast action yeast is indeed amazing.

5) My kitchen aid makes me nervous after two break downs... I will post on this later.

6) Kneading by hand is fun and rewarding but still the kitchen aid is easier.

7) Make sure you have the right size loaf tin... very important to avoid brick like loaves!

So we a renewed sense of purpose I have been researching how to perfect my bread.  Yesterday I made an amazing loaf if I don't say so myself. I made a white loaf with the normal Paul Hollywood tin loaf recipe:

- 400g strong white bread flour

- 8g salt

- 7g fast action yeast

- 25g butter

- 250ml cool water

Now what I did differently was to hold out with my kitchen aid through the grinding noises and the head bouncing and let it knead it fully rather than to finish it off by hand. I also added less water to begin and more to pull i together rather than adding more in. I believe that as I didn't add anything to the dough like extra oil through kneading that is why it tastes so good. It is soft and moist where as lasts week loaf was dry and oily. Don't get me wrong my last load didn't drip with oil, but it had that texture that bread and cakes tend to have when oil has been added, the dry larger hole texture that oil in recipes bring.

I also read about glazes and topping on Gina's blog Home Joys and mixed up an egg (white and yolk with no water) and brushed this onto the bread before going in the oven and scattered on a mix of sesame seeds and black onion seeds. I had also wanted to slash he top to make it bloom in the oven but my knives are all fairly blunt so didn't want to ruin my bread and squish all of the air out of it trying. I think I will purchase a bread blade at some point, perhaps after starting a sour dough again. 

I put a tray of cold water in the bottom of the oven to make the oven steamy as this is meant to improve the shine. If I am honest I am not sure I do notice the difference with this one. Perhaps I need to do one with and one without of the same dough to test it!

Finally I melted some butter (homemade!) in the microwave and brushed this onto the hot bread as I came out of the oven.

Doug and I will eat this at work for lunch with homemade soup, Carrot and Cumin. The recipe for this came from the New Covent Garden Food Co. A Soup For Every Day Book.

Spelt Roasted Garlic Focaccia

Today I am trying to make a roast garlic focaccia for mum from spelt flour. This is the test run which I will force feed to my other half! If it gets approval from Doug then i'll recreate it for my lovely mum! 

When I first started making it I was dubious as spelt flour has a weaker than normal gluten strands when it has been kneaded. So I added a little more oil and water than called for to increase the development of glutenin in the dough. You can tell this worked as my dough the. Looked more like a pair of my granny's knickers once it was kneaded than bread dough! I also added a little more yeast than necessary as my yeast is not very fresh any more and is a little inactive at time and also to try get some air in what is normally a denser loaf.

It was almost more elastic than my dough is with strong white bread flour!!

So I have greased up a square container and left the dough to rise. I am going let it rise and fall perhaps 3 times over the period of the day to really get some air in the dough which should help the fact that  spelt bread is often dense. Fingers crossed!!

Crumpets

Last night I decided to make crumpets! I was craving them all day and said this to my mum who said give it a go as my brother had had home made ones at Chatsworth last week and they were incredible! So I decided to drop in at Morrisons on the way home and buy some Egg/Crumpet rings. In the past I have tried an upturned cookie cutter but it wasn't so effective... lots of leakage.

the mix was simple, so flour, yeast, sugar, warm milk and cold water to get it started. I left it in the airing cupboard (I know the flavour wouldn't be as good for this but i was short of time) and cracked it out an hour later. It should have taken two hours at room temperature. I mixed in some bicarbonate of soda and some salt and left it a further 10 mins. 

while waiting I heated up my pan and greased up the rings. The first two I made were too big. I filled the rings three quarters full and the resulting crumpets were dense, and too big and i felt not cooked enough. So I decided to try another time only filling them about 2 cm full. This worked out perfectly. Holes appeared on the top and the bottom was well cooked but not burnt. They tasted lovely. I tried them this morning with butter and chocolate spread. I love the way that the butter oozes through the chocolate spread as it is cut into. They tasted amazing, the only complaint I can make is I can taste the bicarb. I don't think I put enough salt in (had to use a mill rather than fine salt which I had run out of) and maybe this effects the flavour of the bicarb? Either way I will probably use less bicarb next time so I cant taste it.

Nom nom!

My crumpet dough after rising

The crumpets cooking in the pan

The final yummy products

Gingerbread House

With the Christmas period being talked about, the shops putting their decorations up and the in laws discussing when we are to visit over Christmas I can't help but think about what my Christmas bakes will be this year! My husband has already jumped in with a suggestion of a yule log (something I was hoping to make anyway), however having watched the British Bake Off Gingerbread construction competition I have decided I shall master the art of making gingerbread houses. Now I never start with the basics...a mistake perhaps! So this year I do plan to practice by making my own house as a gingerbread look alike. Once I have mastered this I plan to make my family home out of gingerbread for Christmas. My Mum and Dad are hosting a big Christmas gathering for us and our Aussie family who are coming over for the first time in many years. There will be about 14 of us tops and so it would be a perfect time to crack out a beautiful gingerbread version of where Christmas is to be hosted! Mum and Dad live a beautiful barn conversion in Derbyshire which I can imagine being "cutified" for the purpose of baking!

I have been thinking about what I shall use for each component. Making the structure I can't imagine being too hard. I will take photos of each sections and roughly work out the ratio of height to length for each section of the house. What concerns me is what to make the roof tiles of... cereal, chocolate buttons, homemade biscuits. What about the windows? I could crack up hard boiled sweets and melt these in the oven in my gingerbread "window frames" to make see through windows, or perhaps I should I just paint on some white icing? What shall I bind the gingerbread with, icing or caramel?

What I have come to realise about this baking ambition is that my gingerbread houses are going to require much planning especially if I want a professional looking house rather than one of the instant pack houses from the supermarket!

I love the detail of this house but do not expect mine to look anywhere near as good as this one!

This is simple and sweet, if mine looked like this I would be pleased.

This is one of my favorites, It is so sweet and beautifully done.

Again, another detaild gorgeous house, but I feel it is missing snow! I like the detailing of the wooden paneling the best. My parents home is made of large blocks of sandstone which I would like to think I could replicate.

Again, another one which captured my imagination for the detailed textures. Beautiful.

This one was the first one which made me want to do this. If I could make mine look as sweet and tidy as this one I would be pleased.

If all else fails I will do a simple design like this sweet little house. I like the ice cream cones being used for trees.

Bread Plait 3 Strand

Today I had fun making three new things with my kitchen aid. I started with Chapatis to eat with lunch and for tomorrow at work. They turned out well although tougher than the ones I like. Better than last time I attempted them though. Then I made the dough for a three strand bread plait. I left it to rise then plaited it then left it to prove. I made it using honey and seed bread flour from our local farm shop. The only problem was when I put it into the oven and set the alarm on our new combo timer and thermometer device I forgot to press the start button after setting the time so my bread came out rather burnt having been in the oven for 30+ mins rather than 20. Oh well below is a picture of it looking gorgeous before I burnt it! After cutting the brown crust off the inner bread and base was still amazing!! I dipped it in oil and raspberry vinaigrette and Doug had his with Strawberry and Vanilla jam. I also helped Doug to make garlic pasta Doug in the kitchen aid. As a garlic fiend I couldn't resist the smell of the dough. Mmm!

Hollywood Bread Attempt 1.2

Yesterday when I got back from Swindon I cracked out (opened kindle app) the book I bought on bread making by Paul Hollywood. I decided as I had mozerella in the fridge which needed using up to try the mozerella and tomato bread. It was about like a focaccia just more dense with a crispier top. It was by no means a pretty bread but I did taste amazing. The dough scared me as it was so wet I didn't quite think I would be able to do much with it. but wow did It taste amazing. I sent Doug into work this morning with the bread filled with slices of mozzarella and large plum tomatoes and use butter to stop the liquid from the filling from making the bread soggy. Thinking about it I wish I had put pesto in there too. Oh well next time! I took some into work too and have been dipping it into olive oil and vinegar.

I had forgotten to add the last 1/4 of water first and got a tough dough scrapped it thus why this one is called version 1.2!!

Hollywood Style

Eeek! I am so excited to get home!

For the last two days I have been working from Swindon. Last night whilst sat in my hotel room on my lonesome I was watching Great British Bakeoff, one of my favourite programmes. After watching the breadmaking episode and watching the contestants battle with a delightful octopussy looking eight piece plait I decided I would like a go and improving my bread making skills.

I went onto the kindle sight and looked at reviews for Paul Hollywoods books. He has two out; 100 great breads and how to bake. The book 100 great breads had a lot of negative reviews so I decided to go for how to bake. Most of his recipes are breads rather than cakes which put me off initially. I checked the price on the ibooks apple store, it came up as £19.99 :-O and then I checked it on kindle, £7.99. No competition!

I have now downloaded the book and the recipes look amazing. My husband has volunteered himself as a willing taste tester not surprisingly as he loves all things bread related! So my new challenge is to have a go at baking some exciting breads! I cant wait to get home and get started.

First use of kitchen aid

Last night I used my kitchen aid for the first time. The first thing I made was focaccia bread. My husband loves focaccia bread so thy is why I chose this! I divided the dough into three. The first two dough sections I turned into normal focaccia bread with rosemary and salt topping. The final one I experimented with and decided to make a stuffed focaccia. I used mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes in the middle and my goodness did it taste good! It was meant to be for Dougs lunch today but we ended up eating it warm alongside our dinner or truffle butter and pasta which we bought back from Italy. Interestingly I made two lots of truffle butter. The first batch I put into a plastic Tupperware tub and the second one I rolled into a cylindrical shape in some grease proof paper and left both in the fridge. Whilst I was away on honeymoon the one in the Tupperware tube became mouldy but the one in paper was fine. I have also experimented making truffle oil before but I found that the truffle went a little furry after a few weeks so the truffle butter in paper seems to be the best way to preserve the truffles once the tub is opened.

The second thing I made using my kitchen aid was the layer cake I saw online. It turned out less pretty than the one online but tasted good. I made a few changes including using delia smiths recipe, making white chocolate icing and putting raspberry jam on between every layer. I found my cake leaned a little. It wasn't so bad for a first attempt at a multi layer cake but I would definitely want it to be neater next time!!

Plans of my first cake

I am planning what cake to make first with my trusty side kick. I have always wanted to do a cake with more than two layers and I quite fancy something colourful. At first I thought about a Battenburg as my colleague really loves them. However now I think I will make this cake as it just looks so cute!

It is a Martha Stewart pastel layer cake

http://www.marthastewart.com/287207/pastel-layer-cake#

I will leave the Battenburg for another day!

My New Sidekick

Doug and I decided whilst we were away on our honeymoon that we wanted a new TV and a Kitchen Aid so that we could get rid of all of the kitchen gadgets and replace it with one mighty gadget!! So yesterday with John Lewis vouchers in hand we headed over the the kitchen section of John Lewis. I fell for a metallic blue kitchen aid. She is beautiful and has been named Betty Blue! Doug is a big pasta fan so we also bought the pasta cutter extension and the vegetable and fruit grinder box set. A lot of money later we walked away what looked like the kitchen department of John Lewis and frazzled expressions!! I am a little dubious of our kitchen aid as it cost the same as I spent on my wedding dress. Don't panic, my dress was relatively cheap for a wedding dress but still this is a lot of money to hand over for a kitchen instrument. I hope that it's benefits and uses are worth the costs!! Tonight I want to make my other half some focaccia using the kneading hook!

Dariy Free Chocolate Brownie

Again this is an adapted version of the brownie recipe in the Humingbird bakery book.  It is garanteed to go down well. It never fails me and takes seconds to make that I always make this when people come over. It works for afternoon tea, as well as a pudding warmed up with a dollop of ice cream. Yum.

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate
175g  soya spread
325g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs
I use Dr Oetker dark cooking chocolate bars only say may contain but don’t list dairy products in their ingredients so I assume it is just that the factory uses milk in other products and they write this to cover their backs.  If you use dark dark chocolate it tends to be too rich for brownies and they don’t turn out so well.  For the spread I use dairy free soya spread as this tastes similar to unsalted butter. If you can use the soya version rather than the sunflower or olive version. Also fresh eggs really help make this brownie lovely and light and slightly sticky. Mmmm
Instructions

This recipe works well by hand, I had never tried doing this is a food processor before last week as it is so easy to make I can’t justify the extra washing up the processor causes! However as I discovered when I did do it in a processor it does get the mix far smoother but I have to say this didn’t impact on the taste!
Preheat the oven to 170’C and prepare your tin. I tend to use baking paper to line the tin.  Just a long strip going across in one direction with extra hanging over wither side to life the cake out with after cooking.

1)      Put the chocolate (broken up into chunks) into a heatproof bowl with the margarine and melt this in the microwave.  Keep a close eye on this. Don’t multitask at this stage just watch over the chocolate and keep taking it out and stirring to combine it as it melts.

2)      Add the sugar to the chocolate mix and stir in until smooth.

3)      Add the flour and stir in. It will seem a little stiff and doughy at this stage. Do not fear the eggs will change that!

4)      Now add the eggs into the bowl and mix, you will notice that the mix becomes lovely and smooth and probably has air bubbles on the surface.

5)      Pour this into your prepared tin and put into the oven for 30 – 35 mins

6)      Keep an eye on it from 30mins on, when you take the cake out, if you gently wobble to tin from side to side if the cake wobbles and moves in the centre you know the mix is still liquidy and not quite ready. Put it in for a further 5 mins. Keep taking it out and checking like this until it is no longer wobbling in the centre. When you think it is finally done take the cake out, and insert a skewer, if the skewer comes out clean you know that is is cooked!

7)      Leave the cake in the tin for 30 mins until it is more solid, then lift it out of the tin onto a rack.  I like to turn mine upside down and use a sharp wet knife to slice the brownies into squares. Then I cut a shape out of paper like a heart or Christmas tree etc nd place this in the middle of the square and then sprinkle icing sugar on the top of the brownie do when you lift of the paper shape you have a pretty topping!

Coconut and Lime Cake

This is a brilliant recipe :-D I love making this. For a dairy free version just substitute the butter in the butter ice for dairy free margerine. If you use soya marg it just tastes like unsalted butter and you won't be able to tell!

1) Grate a 200g block of creamed coconut
2) Mix half of this into the cake mix before baking.
3) For the frosting mix the other half into butter icing (6oz butter and 9oz icing sugar) with the zest and juice of two limes. If you have any stir a shot or so of malibu into the butter icing and mix.
4) If you have any desicated coconut then try litle dry frying this in a pan to brown in a little and leave to cool (this is a must do, do not skip this bit... bad things happen like icing slipping off the cake. I talk from bitter experience!)

5) Decorate the top, sides and middle of the cake witht he butter icing and when done stick the toasted coconut around the edge and decorate the top with slices of lime.  Yum.

Macaroons

I am a sucker for macaroons :-) I found a little shop in London that sold macaroons which tasted better than most of the ones I have tried in Paris! I loved the front of the shop, it was so colourful :-)




I bought a book from Chatsworth shop on how to make them but I found it too complicated. Yesterday I came across this website:

http://foodnouveau.com/2010/03/29/desserts/how-to-make-macarons-a-detailed-illustrated-step-by-step-recipe/

It explains simply how to make them. I tried this recipe yesterday rather than the book from Chatsworth at it proved more successful than my last attempt. I keep over whipping the egg whites and when I add my food dye it separates and looks curdled. The instructions for any macaroon recipe say to leave the egg whites separated for 24 hours before using so I am going to try making them again doing this. I separated my eggs last night... The attempt yesterday ended up cracked, overcooked and and well, just not macaroon quality!

After years of sewing, perfecting my cake recipes and trawling the internet for inspiration I felt the time has come to record my discoveries somewhere for myself and others who may benefit.  Most of the females in my family can't eat wheat and fortunately while I can dig into a nice chunck of freshly baked break I can't eat dairy so I have learnt to cook without these ingredients. My mum and I have been adapting recipes, making minor changes to being just plain adventurous.  I would like to pass these onto other people who struggle to find a good victoria sponge cake or a nice chocolate brownie recipe!  So  I hope that you enjoy my new blog as much as I enjoy creating it :-D

Clare x