Spicy Buns Anytime!

Spicy buns, hot cross buns, hot cross-less buns or whatever you like to call them. My absolute favourite to make and eat.

For many years I made spicy buns (hot cross-less buns as I usually call them) by hand. Then I transitioned onto using my bread maker, which I continue to do now. This year has been especially interesting as I have given myself time to experiment with different recipes and ways to make these yummy buns. I would like to share with you some of these recipes, one old, one trusted and one new.

And for the record, there should be no one special time of year to make these little treats, as they are loved hot out of the oven by family and friends anytime!

This is my old recipe. From a 1930’s Wartime cookery book, this recipe is how we used to make them. I love the old used looking pages. Not much different to now!

This following recipe is from Alison Holst’s Kitchen Diary. This is my trusted recipe I used when my kids were little.

1. Measure milk, hot water and sugar into a large bowl or saucepan. Warm or cool to body temperature, sprinkle on yeast. Stir after 1-2 minutes to remove lumps of yeast. Mix in first measure of flour, cover and leave to rise in the sun or sink of warm water.

2. In another bowl, cream butter and brown sugar, then beat eggs, salt, spices, vanilla and dried fruit.

3. When yeast mixture is nearly three times its original volume add it to the creamed mixture with 2 cups of the second measure of flour.

4. Add enough extra flour to make dough form enough to turn onto a dry bench top to knead.

5. Knead, adding just enough flour to stop dough sticking, until its satiny and springs back when poked.

6. Cut dough into four pieces, then each piece into 8 or 9 pieces. Shape each into a round ball and arrange in greased cake tins in rows (I use a roasting dish), allowing room to rise. Leave to rise covered with tea towel.

7. Make short pastry crosses. Rub 60g cold butter into 1 cup flour then add water to form a stiff dough. Roll thinly, then cut into strips. Dip strips into beaten egg and place on buns when risen to twice its original size.

6. Bake at 225C for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned. Glaze immediately (very important to do this) with syrup made of 2 tablespoons golden syrup with 1 tablespoon water for 1 minute. 

Note: this recipe can be adapted to a bread maker using your machines order of ingredient guidelines and a bit of common sense.

Sourdough Spicy Buns in the bread maker - the new recipe

1. Into your bedmaker place 190 grams sour dough starter, 3 cups flour (high grade or strong bakers flour), 3 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 2 tablespoons milk powder, 1 egg, rind of 1 lemon or orange and 1 cup of water. Place 1 cup sultanas (or your choice of dried fruit) into the bread maker raisin dispenser (or place in when machine beeps).

2. When cycle has finished, remove dough from machine. Form dough into 12 round balls and place into a floured baking dish (I use a roasting dish) with room to rise. Cover with a tea towel and sit in a warm place for dough to rise to about double in size. Hot water cupboard, or in a warm oven at about 30 degrees will work.

Dough just about to go into the fridge.

Naughts and crosses buns

3. Once risen, place in fridge covered in the tea towel for about 10 hours (I do this overnight).

4. After 10 hours proofing, take out of fridge. If you want to put crosses on, mix some flour and water to a paste and pipe on before placing in a pre heated oven at 200C. (Or you either cut crosses or designs into the dough before baking or pipe icing on after).

5. Bake for about 25 minutes. Watch that they don’t burn!

6. Very important - Glaze while hot with 2 tablespoons of golden syrup and 1 tablespoon of water.

Eat hot with loads of butter, or toast later. They just go on giving. Enjoy!

NOTE: If you want something a little different, try adding apples into the mix. Yum!

Breads in the Studio

As an avid bread maker, Easter is one of my yearly highlights as I love to make hot cross buns. This year will be no exception to my rule!

But first, the basics.

Having found purchasing some of the ingredients difficult due to the demand on basics (mainly yeast and flour), I have concentrated my efforts on my trusty sour dough starter to get me by. For a long time I have found sour dough to be the best bread for myself and my husband. It’s easy to make and good on my stomach.

Bread making is part of my baking routine that gives me great joy. I believe bread is a food that nourishes the soul and body.

Over the years I have re-jigged my bread recipes to suit my lifestyle. Early on, I would make it by hand, kneading and spending time worrying over rising. Then I bought a bread maker. But I missed the hands on making so I modified my recipes to ‘dough in bread maker only’. So I would set the bread maker going and then work the dough into the shapes and types of breads I wanted. This fitted with in my busy glass making routine well. Less time in the kitchen.

Then along came sour dough. I found a great New Zealand website Home Grown Happiness that gave me all the basics on making and looking after your sour dough starter. Now, I rarely use bought yeast, opting for my sourdough starter instead.

What I found is that you can change your bread recipes to fit sour dough easily. Instead of 4 teaspoons of sure bake yeast, I use 190grams of my sour dough starter. Set your bread maker to the normal white bread dough setting and away you go.

My basic bread maker recipe for Sour Dough Bread.

190grams sour dough starter, 3 cups high grade or bakers strong flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 3/4 cups water. After the bread maker has finished leave for an hour or so (in the bread maker because its still warm) before turning onto a well floured board. The dough will be very sticky. This is normal. With well floured hands pull the dough up and into centre until you have a round shape. I place this into a floured calico lined bread basket. Cover with a tea towel and place in fridge overnight.

Timing is up to you. I start mine about 6pm. It’s finished in the machine at 8.20pm. It sits and rises until i’m just about to go to bed about 10.30pm. I place the dough in the bread basket (you could line your bowl with a tea towel) and into the fridge it goes. In the morning I turn the oven on as high as it will go. Place a cast iron covered casserole dish in the oven to heat. Once hot, take the dish out of oven, dust with flour, carefully lift dough out of basket (it should be firmish on the outside), turn upside down into hot dish (so the bottom will be the top), score the dough with a sharp knife to let air out while cooking. Cook for 40 minutes with lid on. Check on the bread before it finishes to make sure it’s not burning or if it needs longer. Once cooked, turn out onto a cooling wrack, cover with a tea towel and let cool. The crust should be a bit crunchy. This is perfect!

It’s important to note that bread making is a pleasure, not a burden, so arrange your bread making time to suit your lifestyle. If this means using a breadmaker as I do, that’s great. But making bread by hand is wonderful (and can be fun with the kids). I fully recommend doing it this way if you can or if you don’t have a machine. Just enjoy the process!

Working In Isolation

Working in isolation isn’t too much different to my normal routine. Except I don’t have any visitors! Those who know me know I love to bake, for my family, friends, students and the many people who visit or stay.

Baking, as with my glass making, is a way I can emotionally (de-stress!) and creatively express myself.

My challenge during this time of isolation has been to re-look at how I make and bake. Being more careful with what I bake, less wasteful and more aware of the quantities I use (so Im not having to drive into town to restock my pantry too often). Making sure I have good meals on the table for my essential working husband. And re-looking at my glass making practices in terms of recycling what I have and becoming way more efficient with my raw products.

So to begin, I have been going through cookbooks given to me by my grandmother. One recipe I wanted to share, was taught to me when I was a young girl. It was my grandmothers favourite when we didn’t have a lot in the cupboards. It’s simply called Aunt Daisy Loaf. It has no eggs and no butter. My grandmother preferred to put her butter ‘on it’ rather than in it!

Aunt Daisy was a radio personality who specialised in domesticity from 1930 to 1963. She talked about new recipes, products and handy hints and tips during wartime and after. She wrote many cook books over those years.

I like this when it’s hot out of the oven, with lots of butter!

The Beginning

I am the oldest of three children born in a small rural New Zealand town and I have never known my father.

I will forever have fond memories of living with my grandparents. They instilled in me at a very young age that keeping busy was a way to ensure my sense of self worth remained. It was a form of self-preservation that I really valued as I grew up. My grandfather taught me how to care for animals and how to swing a hammer. He taught me to be industrious. And my grandmother taught me the value of practicing useful crafts, cooking and living simply.

My earliest memory of making came from time spent with my great grandmother (my grandmothers mother). She was old (sometimes scary) and full of idiosyncrasies. She was an avid collector of memorabilia and rubbish; she never threw anything away, to the extent that her bedrooms were piled from floor to ceiling with newspapers and family photos, and used butter papers were pushed to the back of cupboards and squeezed under the wooden backdoor step. Her little house bulged with things she just couldn’t or wouldn’t part with. In her past she had been a talented seamstress; whether this was out of necessity or love of the work I don’t know, but she still had her old sewing machine hidden under all the rubbish until she died. To me her eccentricities were playful and fun. They were happy memories I remember as she taught me how to peddle the sewing machine, to crochet and to be methodical about the process my of making.

My beautiful mother spent many hours in a little outside room where she painted. In my formative years as I watched her mix oil colours, pouring out her emotions onto the canvas, I did not understand the impact her artistic methods would have on my life. As an adult I have realised she taught me to express myself with honesty, to teach this to others, just as she tried to do in the deep landscapes of her paintings.

From a very young age (here pictured at 3 years old) I was always seen to be making stuff.

After graduating from art school in 2002, I worked towards building my studio in the beautiful bush clad hills of Brunswick, just outside of Whanganui township. As a full time glass artist this is where my glass making practice was able to flourish. After gaining a Masters degree in 2013, my work began to evolve from historical dress designs and textile (what I am known for) into incorporating craft techniques, such as crochet through the technique of lost wax casting.

I continue to exhibit my glasswork widely. I regularly teach glass-casting workshops and am an ongoing mentor to many students throughout New Zealand.

And I love baking, for my family, friends, students and people who stay at my studio.

I am an advocate of sustainable living and taking care of our environment, applying this philosophy to my glass making practices and everyday life where possible.