Sourdough hot cross buns

This is a sourdough version of the Hot Cross Bun recipe from Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley, slightly adapted.

Makes 16 buns.

12-24 hours before you want to make the Hot Cross Bun dough, soak a Fruit mixture and refresh your sourdough starter.

Production Sourdough (12-16 hours)

Plain or Wholemeal flour	120g
Rye flour	60g
Sourdough starter	130g
Water (room temperature)	110g
Total	420g

Refresh your old starter with flour and water as above. Don’t use only white wheat flour for this part because it’s lacking in the bioactive elements (natural yeasts and beneficial bacteria) that make a sourdough work well. Mix everything together into a smooth dough, then cover (a lidded tub is good) and leave in a cool place (not the fridge) to ferment.

[You can do a faster four-hour refreshment if you have a reasonably active starter. In this case, use 35°C water and leave the mix to ferment in a warm place.]

Fruit Mix

Raisins	100g
Sultanas	100g
Stem or crystallised ginger, or candied peel, or flaked almonds	70g
Fruit juice, water or spirit (e.g.rum)	40g
Total	310g

Put everything into a bowl with a well-fitting lid or a strong polythene bag, tie its neck and swirl it around a bit so that the liquid comes into contact with all the dry ingredients. Do this a couple of times over the soaking period if possible.

 Once the production sourdough has doubled in size: 

The Main Dough

Production sourdough (from above)	400g
Plain flour	100g
Wholemeal flour (or bread flour, or whatever flour you want)	200g
Butter (or olive oil)	50g
Brown sugar	50g
Mixed spice	10g
Sea salt (reduce to 2 g if using salted butter)	5g
Egg (two medium eggs)	100g
Water	100g
Fruit Mix (from above)	300g
Total	1315g

Add the flour, spice, salt, egg, sugar, butter & water (but not the fruit) to the production sourdough and mix until everything is combined well. Knead (or mix in a machine) gently for as long as it takes to develop a soft, fairly smooth dough (the smoothness will depend on the proportion of wholemeal flour in the mix). Scotland The Bread flour has a softer gluten that doesn’t require much kneading. Add a little extra water if the dough becomes too stiff. It must be very soft at this stage. The dough will be tacky on the surface because of the sugar and egg in the mix, so use water on your hands and the worktop to stop it sticking too much. If your dough feels too soft and sticky to handle, it is probably about right! Put the kneaded dough in a bowl, cover well and leave it for 30 minutes or so. It won’t show many signs of rising in this time, but the gluten will relax which makes folding the fruit in much easier. Stretch the dough gently out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 25 cm (10”) x 20 cm (8”). Spread the soaked fruit mix over almost all the surface. Roll the dough up carefully, turn it through 90 degrees and roll it gently up again, taking care not to force the fruit through the surface (easier said than done). Divide into pieces weighing about 80 grams each and, using a little flour on your hands and if necessary on the worktop, mould them into fairly tight, round buns and place them in accurate rows on a baking tray with a 2.5 cm (1”) gap between each bun. Remove any fruit exposed on the top of the rolls and tuck it underneath so that it doesn’t burn and become bitter. Prove until the buns are almost touching. This may take four or five hours, depending on the vigour of your sourdough. Be patient and remember that the natural sourdough yeasts are struggling with elements (butter, egg, spice, even the extra sugar) in the mix that make life difficult for them. Make the cross mix as it needs about the same amount of time to start bubbling:  The Crossing Mix White flour (or sifted wholemeal) 50g Olive oil 5g Sourdough starter 10g Water (warm) 50g Total 115g Mix all together and ferment for about four hours. The mixture should be bubbling a little and should be fairly runny. Then when the buns have proved:     Place the fermenting crossing mix in a piping bag with a fairly fine nozzle, or cut a very small triangle (the opening should be no more than 3 mm across) from the corner of a stiff polythene bag and improvise your own piping bag.  Then pipe the crosses onto the buns as neatly as you can. Put the buns in the oven immediately after piping the crosses.  Bake at about 180°C/350°F for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven. Glaze generously as soon as the buns are out of the oven with a mixture of two parts warmed honey to one part whipping cream, thoroughly stirred.

Sesame and oat cookies

Ingredients

4 oz rolled oats
4 oz demerara/brown sugar
4 oz butter
2 oz (1/4 cup) sesame seeds
3 oz (3/4 cup) desiccated coconut
1 tsp salt

Method

1. Melt butter, stir in other ingredients.
2. Press into greased floured tin.
3. Bake at gas 5-6 for 30 mins.
4. Cut when nearly cold.

Wheat-free hot cross buns

(Small quantity, to produce circa 4 buns).

Mix 2 tsp of dried yeast with 1/8 pint of warm water and a tsp of sugar. Set aside in a warm place until it is well frothy.

For the buns:
8oz flour composed of some combination of rye, barley and cornflour. I used 3 oz rye, 3 oz barley, 2 oz cornflour.
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp mixed spice (or cinnamon, cloves, ginger)
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1 oz melted butter
2 oz currants
1 oz mixed peel
1 oz white sugar

warm milk/water

Put the dry ingredients in a large warm bowl. Break the egg into it and stir.
Add the melted butter and stir.
Make up the yeast liquid to just under 1/4 pint, preferably with warm milk if available, or warm water.
Add the yeast liquid to the mixture.
Add the currants.
Mix well. It will have the consistency of a cake mixture: not kneadable but scoopable.

Put the bowl in a plastic bag and leave it in a warm place for about an hour.

Not sure how to do crosses without wheat flour, but you could try a paste of barley flour and water from a piping bag.

When the mixture had had time to prove, grease four yorkshire pudding tins and scoop a large spoonful of the spongy mixture into each of them. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 425ºF or gas mark 7.

Glaze as for normal hot cross bun recipe.

Hot cross buns

This is not the traditional Osborne recipe, but I've just checked it works. Makes 12 buns:

For the buns:
450g / 1lb strong plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
50g / 2oz butter
25g / 1oz fresh yeast (or you may substitute dried yeast)
50g / 2oz caster sugar
100g / 4oz currants
50g / 2oz chopped mixed peel
150ml / 1/4 pint warm milk
4 tablespoons warm water
1 egg, beaten

For the crosses:
± 2oz plain flour
± 3 tablespoons cold water

For the glaze:
50g/ 2oz granulated sugar
3 tablespoons milk

Sift flour, salt and spices into a bowl. Rub in the butter. Put the yeast in a cup with 1 tbsp sugar and stir until it goes liquid. Meanwhile stir the remaining sugar into the mixture and also the currants and peel. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the liquidy yeast into it, together with the milk, water and egg. Mix to form a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured board and knead until elastic. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover with cling film or a plastic bag, and leave to rise in a warm place [airing cupboard, or spot near the boiler do nicely] for about 1 to 1.5 hours, long enough for it to double in size.

Then knock back the dough and divide it into 12 balls. Place balls well apart on a greased baking tray. Again cover and leave in a warm place, for about 30 minutes. Next, make the paste for the crosses using flour and water, divide this into 24 tiny balls, roll the balls into "worms" in your fingers and lay the worms over the buns in the form of crosses, sticking the ends down firmly to the side of the buns. Bake buns in a hot oven [220C, or 200C in a fan oven / gas 7] for 20 - 25 minutes. While they're baking make the glaze by bringing the sugar and milk to the boil, stirring. When the buns come out of the oven, brush the glaze over them. [This is difficult without a pastry brush, so locate one if possible]. Cool on a rack.

Apple and almond cake bars

Gluten-free and rather yummy.

Ingredients:

4 oz real butter (salted)
3 oz sugar
4 oz ground almonds
3 eggs

1 large cooking apple
1 oz sugar

Method:
Preheat oven to moderate. Grease a square or rectangular non-stick baking tin.

1. Cream the butter with the 3 ozs of sugar.
2. Stir in the ground almonds.
3. Break the eggs into the mixture and beat them in.
4. Peel and core the apple and slice it into a saucepan. Add the 1 oz of sugar.
5. Put the pan on the heat and stew the apple until it is fluffy. Beat it to ensure it is all smooth.
6. Take the stewed apple and (while still hot) pour it into the almond mixture. Stir it quickly into the mixture and beat it a bit to add some air.
7. Pour the mixture into the greased tin.
8. Bake in moderate oven for about 25 minutes.
9. Cool in the tin and then cut into bars with a plastic spatula. Alternatively serve warm with custard for pudding.

For added interest add some lemon zest or pith, or cinnamon or ginger.

Basic Bread (wholemeal)

For wholemeal bread, one rising is enough. Fresh yeast can be bought from specialist grocers and whole foods shops, and from real bakeries where they bake on site, or ask for it for free from the Tesco in-store bakery.

Ingredients

for three large loaves:

4 1/2 lbs wholemeal flour
6 tsps salt
2 oz lard
2 1/4 pints of warm water (see below)
1 oz of fresh yeast creamed with 1 tsp of sugar (see below)
Optional: a spoonful of malt extract or molasses

or for two large loaves:

3 lbs wholemeal flour
4 tsp salt
1 1/2 oz lard
1 1/2 pints of water
1 oz of fresh yeast creamed with sugar as above
Optional: a spoonful of malt extract or molasses

Method:

1. Put the yeast in a small cup and add a teaspoon of white sugar. Stir the sugar in firmly and put it aside. It will become runny after a few minutes.
2. Put the flour into a large mixing bowl (it needs to be very large, i.e. washing up bowl size, for the larger quantities)
3. Add the salt
   
4. Rub in the lard.
5. Measure up the water as follows: boil the kettle and pour approximately one third boiling water and two thirds cold water from the tap into the measuring jug (or each time you fill the jug if it takes more than one filling).
   
6. Pour most of this water into the flour, reserving a small amount to add to the yeast.
   
7. Pour the small measure of water into the cup of liquid yeast/sugar. Stir and add this yeast and water to the flour. (The water added directly to the yeast MUST not be too hot. The other water can be a little hotter since it will be cooled by the flour before the yeast gets there, especially on a cold day, and making the dough quite warm will speed up rising).
8. Roll up your sleeves and wash your hands. Put the bowl on a table at a comfortable height for working. Starting with a knife and then using your hands stir and then knead the mixture until the water is all absorbed and the dough is smooth and springy, forming a clean ball. Drag and pummel it about in the bowl. It should clean all the dough off your hands in the process, though you may need to assist it by using a knife to scrape your fingers off and on.
9. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead it on a smooth surface for a bit, pulling, stretching and folding it and hitting it down hard with your knuckles.
10. Grease the loaf tins.
11. Divide the dough into the right number of pieces, by rolling the side of your hand back and forth across the dough ball like a bread knife at the cutting points.
12. Put the dough pieces into the tins, put the tins into a huge plastic bag and arch the bag up over them so the bread has room to rise inside. Leave the bread to rise in the kitchen or some other warm place.
13. An hour later, check the bread to see if it is well risen.
14. Heat the oven to 450ºF, 220ºC, Gas mark 8. On the fan oven, make it about 200º or the bread setting if there is one.
15. When the oven is warm, put the loaves in and set the clock for 42 minutes. You can glaze the top of the loaves with milk or egg if you like, before baking them.
    
16. Remove the bread from the oven and take the loaves out of the tins. Cool on a wire rack (put a tea towel over the top to keep them slightly moist, if the loaves are to be left out cooling overnight).
    

Lemon squares

Ingredients:
8oz plain flour
2oz icing sugar
1/4tsp salt
6oz cold butter or margarine
1tsp cold water

For the lemon layer:
4 eggs
1lb caster sugar
1oz plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp grated lemon rind
2 floz fresh lemon juice
icing sugar, for sprinkling

1. Rub butter into flour, icing sugar and salt until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water and toss until starting to sort-of form a ball.
2. Tip mixture into a lined and greased 13"x9" baking tin and press down evenly.
3. Bake at 180C/350F/Gas 4 for 15-20 mins until lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.
4. Meanwhile, beat together the eggs, caster sugar, flour, baking powder, lemon rind and juice. Use of electric mixer advised.
5. Pour the lemon mixture over the baked base. Return to the oven and bake for 25 mins.
6. Remove from oven, allow to cool, sprinkle with icing sugar and cut into squares with a sharp knife before serving.

Makes 12 large squares, or more smaller ones. Quite convincing as a pudding as well as at tea time.