Cinnamon buns

My friend and her family went to Norway on holiday recently, and she sent me a postcard, in English, with the recipe for cinnamon buns [kannelbullar]. Presume kannel means cinnamon like cannelle in French. I just had to try some.
I decided to use my bread maker to make the dough, and then just had to roll it out, fill, roll it up, cut and give it a second rise. It worked out really well, and I'm very happy with the result.
You can, of course, make the dough by hand.

The recipe said it made 12, but I made one too big so only got 11!

Dough:

2 tspns instant yeast [I used 1 sachet and it worked fine]
60g butter
50g sugar
150ml milk which has been scalded and cooled
1 egg
1/2 tspn salt
1 heaped tspn freshly ground cardamom
325g strong white flour

Filling:

60g soft butter
60g caster sugar
3 tspns ground cinnamon
pearl sugar

Beat the egg and divide in half - half for dough and half to glaze buns.

Bread machine - put all the ingredients into the bucket and run on dough cycle.

By Hand - put flour and butter in a bowl and rub in; fold in the salt, sugar, cardamom and yeast. In another bowl pour in the milk and add half the egg and mix together. Add to the dry ingredients. Mix with your hand till you get a smooth, stretchy  dough [takes about 5 mins]. Leave the dough in a warm place till doubled in size. Knock back and knead again for 2-3 mins.

For both methods:

Once the dough is ready, turn onto a floured surface and roll into a large rectangle about 1/2 cm thick.
Make the filling - beat the butter, sugar and cinnamon together till smooth.
Spread the filling over the dough and roll up like a swiss roll. Cut into 12 slices.
Put each slice, cut side up, in a muffin case on a baking sheet. Cover with a damp teatowel or clingfilm and leave for about an hour to double in size.

Heat oven to 210C/gas 6-7 . I used gas 7 and a few buns were overcooked.

Egg wash the buns with the other half of the egg, and sprinkle with pearl sugar.
Bake buns for about 6 mins till golden.

Here's my buns before the second rise.

                                                           And here's a ready-to-eat bun.

They are delicious, and would be lovely warm for breakfast. For my own tastes, as a cinnamon fanatic, I'd like a bit more filling, otherwise I wouldn't change anything. I thought it would be a really complicated recipe to make, but it's easy, tho' a bit time consuming if you're making your own dough. I brought some pearl sugar back from France, but I'm sure one of the supermarkets would have some. The cardamom just gives a hint of another flavour in the background. I'll certainly make these again.

Bara Brith

The Welsh name means speckled or mottled bread.  My Gran used to used make it regularly, and we loved it spread with butter.
There are many versions of this recipe, some use yeast and others use baking powder. This is my Gran's recipe which I've tweaked a bit, and it's very easy to make.

450g/1lb dried mixed fruit
250g/9oz brown sugar
300ml/½ pint warm black tea [I used a Breakfast tea]
2 tsp mixed spice
450g/1lb self-raising flour
1 egg beaten.


 In a large bowl soak the fruit and sugar in strained tea and leave overnight.

Next day preheat the oven to 170C/Gas 3.
Line a 900g/2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.
Mix the remaining ingredients into the fruit mixture and beat well. The mixture will be soft and runny. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 1½ hours or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Serve sliced and buttered.

Apricot Kolaches

I've been watching the Hairy Bikers "Bakeation' and have enjoyed seeing the interesting breads and pastries which are made in Europe. I decided that I wanted to try one out, and found this recipe for 'Kolaches' in a cookery book about world cooking. They're Czech pastries and are often eaten at festivals such as Easter, so it's an appropriate time to make them.
In the book there's a choice of 2 fillings for the buns - apricot or cheese. I decided on apricot, as I'd just bought some last weekend.
The recipe uses a breadmaker, but they could, of course, be made by hand. I used my breadmaker the other day to make the dough for Hot Cross Buns, and this recipe has some of the same ingredients.

It makes 16 pastries.

1 egg
120ml milk
60g butter
60g sugar
1/2 tspn salt
250g strong white flour
packet quick yeast
icing sugar to dust

Beat the egg and milk together and pour into the breadmaker pan. Add the sugar, butter and salt and then the flour. Make a well in the flour and add the yeast. Set the dough programme on the breadmaker.

Grease 2 baking trays.
When the dough is ready, take out of the pan and knock down. Cut into 16 equal pieces, roll each piece into a ball and flatten a bit. Put the dough balls about 21/2 cms apart on a baking tray, cover with cling film and leave to rise for about 45 mins.

Filling:
60g dried apricots
90g sugar
2 tbspn apricot or orange liqueur or orange juice

Put the apricots in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Simmer till the water disappears, then add the sugar and liqueur or orange juice and heat till the sugar is dissolved [about a minute]. Cool then blitz in a food processor.
Preheat oven to 190C/gas 5.
Gently use a finger to make a dent in the top of each dough ball - don't deflate it! Then gently widen the hole with your finger and add a tbspn of the apricot puree.
Bake for 15-20 mins till golden. Sprinkle with icing sugar while warm.

The dough has a soft texture. I think this is a very versatile recipe as you could use many different fruits or nuts or chocolate as the filling - the list is endless. I'm going to make the cheese ones next.

Welcome to my blog

Hello and welcome to my blog. I'm a keen cook who loves baking and who has way too many cookery books! Don't we all?

I started this blog to encourage myself to cook at least one recipe from all these books, so hope you'll enjoy sharing some of these recipes with me.

Thought I'd start with one of my favourite recipes - a bit of a cheat as I've done it many times before. It's from our lovely Delia's site and is her easy wholemeal bread.

The reason I love this recipe is that there is no kneading - which is a chore. Mind you, when I was teaching, I used to take all my frustrations out on the bread dough while kneading, instead of on the little dears at school! The resulting bread was very good too!

This recipes makes 1 large [as above] or 2 small loaves.

570g wholemeal flour

400ml handhot water

2 teaspoons salt [I use fine sea salt]

1 teaspoon soft brown sugar

2 teaspoons easy- blend dried yeast [1 packet]

Put your flour into a bowl, sprinkle in the salt, sugar and yeast.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the hand-hot water [ use half cold and half boiling water and this gives the right temperature].

Mix the liquid into the flour with a wooden spoon.

If the dough seems a bit dry, add some more hand-hot water; it's better to have too much water than not enough. The dough should leave the bowl clean.

On a flat surface, stretch the dough out into an oblong shape, then fold one end into the centre and the other edge over that. That's all there is to it - no kneading.

Put the folded dough into a 2lb [900] loaf tin or 2x1lb[450g] tins and press firmly round the edges.

Sprinkle the top of the dough with flour and cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise.

Preheat oven to gas 6/400F/200C.

When the dough has risen to the top of the tin/tins bake it for about 40 minutes. When it's cooked it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

Allow it to cool on a wire rack and then enjoy.