With Easter just around the corner, I thought I’d have a lash at my first practice batch of Easter buns. While they should be “crossed”, my mob hates that white stuff and picks it off, so my efforts bear no relevance to any Christian festival.
But what they lack in religious overtones, they more than make up for in taste.
You’ll need the following:
* 350mls of tepid tap water
* 1 egg yolk – I used a 70gm free-range one
* 2 tbspns of olive oil
* 1 tspn of salt
* 2 tbspns of white sugar
* 600 gms of plain flour
* 1 tbspn of ground cinnamon
* 1 tbspn of ground all-spice
* 3 tbspns of milk powder
* 1 tspn of improver
* 1 ½ cups of mixed sultanas and orange rind (with the far majority being "tarnies")
* 2 ¼ tspns of dry yeast
As always, I popped the water and oil in the pan first. I then lightly beat the egg and added it.
I mixed all dry ingredients – including the tarnies and yeast – and added these to the pan.
I set Bev on her “dough” cycle, and settled back to do the rest of the prep work – cutting two pieces of oven-bake paper to fit the baking trays I used.
Once the dough-making cycle was finished, I turned the mass out on a lightly floured board and divided it into 12 roughly equal amounts, which I then rolled into balls and popped onto the trays. I covered these with a dry tea towel and allowed them to continue proofing on the warm kitchen bench for about 45 minutes . . . by which time, they’d doubled again in size.
I pre-heated the oven to 190 degrees C and baked both trays for 20 minutes.
The result? Well, let’s just say we won’t be buying any commercial bunnies this year! These samples were rich, moist, sweet and seemingly loaded with fruit.
For a trial run, they were faultless in everything but shape. I’ll perfect this next round.
PS: Only one drama . . . the following morning they seemed a tad dry. Not sure why, either. However, a short burst (about 20 seconds) in the microwave seemed to bring them back to their previous evening’s life. None of the taste, however, was lost.
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