For this month Bread Baking Day #28, hosted by Rachel of Tangerine’s Kitchen , I actually planed to bake Hot Cross Buns. These sweet spiced buns are traditionally baked and served on Good Friday in England. As Y. doesn’t like spice in bread I switched to Chelsea buns. Chelsea Buns are an 18th century invention, made famous by the Chelsea Bun House in London, an establishment favoured by Hanoverian royalty and demolished in 1839. The buns are made of a rich yeast dough flavoured with lemon peel. The filling contains currants, sugar, melted butter and cinnamon.
The most appealing recipe I found on Times Online food & drink section: Michel Roux’s Chelsea buns recipe.
Chelsea buns
serves 15
500 g strong bread flour
75 g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
75 g butter
15 g yeast
200 ml milk, tepid
1 egg
grated zest of lemon
Filling
150 g rum soaked raisins
50 g melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon (original 1 tbsp)
1 tbsp icing sugar
Glaze
3 tbsp water boiled with 3 tbsp sugar
Sift the flour, sugar and salt together, then gently rub in the butter. Dissolve the yeast in the tepid milk and add the egg. Gradually mix this with the flour until you have a dough texture – dust the work surface with extra flour to avoid it sticking.
Place the dough in a bowl, cover and leave to prove until it has doubled in size.
Knock the dough back and roll out into a rectangle measuring about 20cm x 40cm. Brush with the melted butter and sprinkle with the sultanas and lemon zest. Mix together the cinnamon and icing sugar and sprinkle over the dough. Roll up the dough, starting from the longest edge, and cut the roll into about 15 pieces.
Place the buns on a non-stick baking tray, making sure they are not too close together. Leave to rise for 1 hour.
Cook in a hot oven, 200C for about 20 minutes. The buns should be golden- brown, moist and all stuck together. Cool on a wire rack and brush with glaze while still hot.
***
Excellent buns! Next time I would roll out the dough a bit thinner, though.
In addition this is my submission to Susan’s YeastSpotting, the weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes.
More entries and recipes in English.
Wonderful buns, they look fantastic!
Very appealing Zorra…
Yum :) I’m about to make my first hot cross buns this Easter. But now I don’t know. These buns of yours look sooo delicious…Probably I’ll change my mind and try these out. I’m just worried about using fresh yeast – usually it doesn’t work for me that well. But thanks for sharing :)
Cheers
Yummita
REPLY:
You don’t need to be scared about fresh yeast. But if you like you can replace the fresh yeast by dried one.
Ein grosses Dankeschön für dieses wunderbare Rezept!! Geht gleich in die Lieblingsrezeptliste ein:-) liebe Grüsse und ein schönes Osterfest
Zorra, those buns and the photos are outstanding. I’m so glad you started BBD..as it’s been sucvh a joy to see and experience different breads from around the world. I thought I knew just about every type of bread out there..little did I know..lol