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!


 

Amazon Addict

I have recently discovered the amazingly cheap goods on Amazon! I have purchased a phone case recently from there for the bargain price of £3 only to discover it didn't fit the screen protector underneath. I was pretty disheartened! So after buying a new more expensive case from a service station I took another look on Amazon. I ordered a phone sock  for a few quid :-) and all of my advent calender fillers for my other half. I also managed to get 5 back and front phone screen protectors for £1.30... now that is a bargain. Having seen them for £7+ in the past I was sure they didn't cost anywhere near that to produce and they are so disposable! Although a handy note is if you put it on and there is dust caught underneath, stick some sellotape on your fingers, lift up the protector and sellotape the dust away and lay it on again. Sorted! I managed to fix an ipad screen protector by sellotaping the whole thing!

A few years ago I made my other half an advent calender by sewing 25 mini stockings and writing numbers on them with fabric paint and then hanging them on a ribbon. Each one is about one and a half credit card lengths and slightly narrower than a credit card width. I normally put a few sweets or chocolate in each one, a sentimental script, whether a memory and a photo, a line or two from the Christmas story or a joke. I also put in a little gift every Sunday. I find it quite hard normally to find relevant gifts and keeping the total advent calender price under £20 but this year I have managed to get all of his presents before November had even started! All of the presents came from Amazon and they got delivered today. I am really impressed with them! Yay just the rest of my shopping to do now!

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.