Saturday, March 31, 2018

Weekend Cooking: Hot Cross Buns


Our continued adventures in baking...the Easter addition

As I have mentioned several times now that we have been making bread, and that continues unabated. For example, on Monday we are going to be making slow cooked butter chicken and we are going to be making the naan bread to eat with it.

I decided this year that I wanted to try making my own hot cross buns, just because we can, so on Thursday night we bit the bullet and made first ever attempt. Whilst they weren't perfect, they were definitely tasty in the traditional way, and they were very nice toasted and then spread with butter. They weren't as light and fluffy as they could have been, but we think that we know why that is. I was a bit worried that I was going to end up with hot rock buns instead of hot cross buns. Yeast can be a tricky beast, and we didn't quite get it right this time, but we will! Maybe just not for another year or so.

It's funny how divisive hot cross buns can be. There are those who hate that hot cross buns start to appear in the shops soon after Christmas, and those who look forward to them and have them regularly until Easter (that's the boyfriend). There are those who don't like sultanas in their buns, or the taste of mixed spice. There are those who like the newer flavours that include apple and cinnamon, chocolate and brioche style hot cross buns. For me, the only thing I prefer is that I like them toasted with butter. Other than that, I'm relatively happy to try anything.

Hot Cross Buns


2 tspn (1 sachet/7g) dried yeast
2 tbspn caster sugar
3/4 cup (185ml) warm milk
1 tspn mixed spice
40g spreadable butter
2/3 cup (110g) sultanas
1 tspn finely grated orange rind
1 egg, lightly whisked
1/3 cup (50g) plain flour, extra
1 1/2 tbspn caster sugar, extra
2 tbspn boiling water,
1 tspn gelatine powder

Combine yeast, sugar and milk in a small bowl. Stand in a warm place for 10 mins or until frothy.

Combine flour and mixed spice in a bowl. Rub in the butter . Stir in sultanas and orange rind. Make a well in the centre. Stir in yeast mixture and egg. Cover. Set aside in a warm place for 40 mins or until dough doubles in size. Grease and 18m x 28cm slice pan (I used a square baking tin)

Knead the dough on a floured service for 5 mins. Divide into 12 portions. Roll each portion into a ball. Place in prepared pan. Cover. Set aside in a warm place for 10 mins.

Preheat over to 220C. Combine extra flour and 2 tspn of extra sugar in a small bow. Stir in 2 tbspn cold water to form a thick, smooth paste. Place in a sealable plastic bag and cut off 1 corner. Pipe over buns to make crosses. Bake for 20 mins or until buns sound hollow when tapped on top. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.

Stir boiling water, gelatine and remaining 1 tbspn extra sugar in a heatproof jug until gelatine dissolves. Brush over hot buns. Serve warm with butter

Interestingly, I tried a recipe from our local supermarket magazine. In it, there was a link to the following video but the recipe above is slightly different to the one below






How do you prefer your hot cross buns? Have you ever tried to make them?


Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Weekend Cooking: 2 Hour No Knead Bread

A couple of months ago I posted about how excited we were to be making our own bread, especially seeing as there was little effort require.

The only thing with that recipe was that it required a long time, usually somewhere between 12 and 18 hours. It tasted delicious, but you couldn't just decide on a Sunday that you wanted fresh bread, you had to decide on Saturday that you wanted bread for Sunday.

I happened to see this recipe somewhere. Eventually I tracked it down to Jenny Jones' website. I was pleased because whilst this still has minimal effort, it also takes 2 hours at most, and the bread was still good. If I had to pick which was the better bread taste and texture wise, it would probably be the recipe that takes loner but this was way more achievable on a regular basis.

We intend to maybe try the no knead bread rolls at some point in the near future.

2 Hour No Knead Bread
  • 3 cups bread flour (all purpose works too)
  • 2 teaspoons instant yeast (1 packet/7 grams)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups hot water (up to 130° F)
  • (about 2 Tablespoons extra flour for shaping)
Instructions:
  1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Stir in water until it’s well combined.
  2. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.
  3. After 40 minutes, place a 3 to 6-quart Dutch oven with lid in a cold oven and preheat to 450° F.
  4. After the dough has rested for the hour, place it on a well-floured surface and sprinkle with a little flour. Using a scraper fold dough over 10-12 times & shape into a rough ball.
  5. Place in a parchment paper-lined bowl and cover with a towel or another bowl. Let stand on counter top for 15 minutes.
  6. After 15 minutes, carefully, using oven gloves, lift the parchment paper and dough from the bowl and place gently into the hot pot. (parchment paper goes in the pot too) Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
  7. After 30 minutes, remove lid and parchment paper. Return, uncovered, to oven and bake 10 more minutes.

**I would post a photo but my SD card has died on my phone and that is where the photo is! Maybe another time.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

Weekend Cooking: Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan

Recently I have been listening to the audiobook of Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan. If I am to believe Goodreads I actually started reading this book four years ago. I remember getting it out of the library and then returning it, but I don't remember actually starting it. The timing must be right now though because I have found myself sitting in the driveway listening to the book (just to get to the end of the chapter) and I very much enjoyed the experience.

Rosie Hopkins lives in London and loves it. She loves the city, the noise, her boyfriend Gerard who she has been with for years and is still waiting for him to ask the big question, she loves her work as a nurse, even if it is only as an agency nurse working on a casual basis. So she isn't really that thrilled when her mum asks her to temporarily move to the Derbyshire country side to look after her elderly aunt Lilian. Lilian is elderly and needs to be moved into an aged care facility and for her lolly shop to be sold off as a going concern.

Rosie is ill-equipped to live in the country. Her clothes and shoes are all wrong, she can't get a telephone signal and she knows nothing about running a sweet shop.

I have no idea if it is still a thing or not, but once upon a time there was a whole genre that was classified as chick-lit, and to my mind, a lot of good chick-lit was British, and this book has all the hallmarks of one of these books. There are improbable situations and a whole village full of handsome, single men just for starters, but it also has a secondary storyline featuring Aunt Lilian.

Whilst we see the here and now realities of aging from both Rosie and Lilian's perspectives, we also get to know a much younger Lilian, about her war time experience, why she never married and, as a consequence, lived her life running her father's sweet shop in a small village.

Throughout the novel, we are also treated to excerpts of the self published book that Lilian had written all about sweets, small glimpses telling us about the history of certain chocolates (did you know that Mars Bars were first made in the 1930's), about the evils of chewing gum (Lilian can get quite opinionated on some subjects), recipes for marshmallows and many more. One was a recipe for Coconut Ice which had an instruction that said it would keep for weeks if stored correctly, but if it lasted for weeks you hadn't made it correctly in the first place. Made me laugh!

I listened to the audio version, narrated by Jane Collingwood, and I did enjoy the reading. At times, I thought that Rosie sounded a little young, but for the most part I did enjoy it, especially the portrayal of Lilian. At times she was brittle, at other times sarcastic,  sometimes scared amongst other emotions.

One of things that I did find myself thinking about at several points in this book was the role of food in memories about meals, about places, about people. I have posted several times in the past about memorable meals, but on this occasion, I found myself thinking about my grandfather.

One of the excerpts from Lilian's book was about the joys of licorice. My grandfather enjoyed sweet things, and there was always a tin filled with lollies by the side of his chair. One of his favourites was licorice allsorts, but he also always had a tin of Kool Mints within easy reach in the car.  Just that small passage had me feeling like he was still there, probably as he was when I was growing up. Lolly tin there waiting to be raided, telephone nearby, and more likely than not, him asleep in his chair as he "watched" TV. And no, he most definitely was not snoring.

As a result of this book I found myself craving licorice allsorts and so I ended up buying a bag, but I must confess that when I ate them, I didn't pull them apart layer by layer as I once would have done! I also ended up buying Crunchies for a couple of days and would have quite happily gone an bought other things that were mentioned as well, but I thought I should probably leave it at that.

 There are now 2 other books in the Rosie Hopkins series, and I think I will most likely try to listen to them at some point too, although my audiobook wishlist is a bit out of control at the moment. Who knows when that will happen!



Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.



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