Lorna's "Healthy" Hot Cross Buns

It’s almost Easter and once again we’ve gone a bit Baking Mad! We decided to run a little competition in the club this month – to bake and blog about an Easter themed recipe. The favourite recipe(s), as voted by our club members and a few special guest judges would win a bundle of baking goodies. We’ve also submitted all of these recipes to BakingMad.com, to join their excellent selection of Easter recipes, such as Hot Cross Buns, EasterCakes, Cake Pops and more! 

This is my entry for the Easter competition. I was trying to think of something that wasn't just decorated in an Easter fashion, and this was practically shouted at me from my boyfriend; i think he's a fan of hot cross buns... They're "healthy" because they contain both dried fruit and wholemeal flour. Let's not mention the syrup on top...

Ingredients:
Makes 12

250-300ml warm milk
50g melted butter
250g strong wholemeal bread flour
250g plain flour
7g (one sachet) fast acting dried yeast
1tsp salt
70g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
50g raisins or sultanas
50g dried fruit (apricots, pineapple, orange peel etc. - whatever you like)

cinnamon (the amount is up to your taste - i suggest 2tsp, but others would say just the one)

75g plain flour
1tbsp golden syrup

Method:

Mix the melted butter with the milk, and make sure the mix is only lukewarm (so you don't kill the yeast). Put the flours, sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid mix and the beaten egg. Don't pour all of it in; about three quarters first because all flours absorb different amounts of liquid and you dont want it to be too sticky!

Now the thing i do to combine the flour and liquid is to use the wrong end of a spoon and mix - i figure it's a bit like a dough hook on a mixer... Seems to work for me at least! So yes, mix until it's nearly all combined (you may need to add more liquid) then turn it out onto a floured surface and get kneading.

I pop the telly on at this point and just knead away until i've got a nice smooth elastic dough; it'll take between 5 and 15 minutes depending on how quick you are. No rush of course (that's why the telly's on). When you're done, pop the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and put in a nice warm, cozy place for about an hour until doubled in size.

When he's proved (i always think of my dough as a "he", maybe i should see someone about that...), knock him back (i.e knead a bit again to get the air out) and split into 12 equal portions. Put a small handful of the dried fruit and raisins on each portion and squish in (technical term!). Make sure they're relatively well distributed but try not to have too many poking through the top of the dough as they might catch in the oven. Make 12 rolls like this, and then leave them on a tray, covered with oiled cling film in that cozy place again for another hour

Righty, so you're almost there. Preheat the oven to 200C. Now mix about 75g of plain flour with 6tbsp of cold water - mix in about 4tbsp straight away, then half a tbsp at a time, until you have a smooth paste (it needs to be quite thick). Pipe crosses on top of the rolls - i forgot the picture at this point, sorry! You'll need to do it slowly because the mix is rather elastic and you don't want to pull it off as you go along. I used scissors to cut the paste at the ends when i'd finished a row to keep it neat.

Bake the rolls for about 20 minutes or until they're nice and golden and sound hollow when tapped.
When they're done, microwave the golden syrup for about 20 seconds so its nice and runny, and brush on top of the rolls (i used a pastry brush). You could alternatively use jam in the same way. Leave to cool on a cooling rack if you can resist them straight from the oven! They go very well with home made lemon curd, but that's a story for a different post. Here's some with some good ol' butter:


PS - this recipe will also be submitted to http://www.bakingmad.com/ideas/easter-baking  - so keep an eye out for it there!