Easter Bun(ny)s

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, a movement towards practices of the past has begun. People are kneading bread and hoeing veggie patches as never before. The benefit of this for those already drawn to this lifestyle is the birth of a brand new community with which to share these joys and endeavours.

We don’t even need to do anything particularly proactive. People on social media have done all the heavy lifting for us, creating local gardening and baking groups to keep us all inspired and connected during this time of uncertainty and isolation.

And so it was that, by chance, a local sourdough group brought to our awareness the miraculous proposition of home made sourdough hot cross buns.

We’ve heard rumours that hot cross buns aren’t really a Thing in other parts of the world – a shocking revelation – and surely that situation must be rectified, COVID-19 or not. If the sharing of recipes and undeniably delicious-looking pictures of these delicacies will change that then we are all too glad to oblige.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with these gorgeous fruity buns, they were originally made to symbolise the death of Christ with a white cross adorning the top of each one, and the spices representing those used to embalm him after death.

These days, they have been embraced by the collective stomachs of our fellow Australians so whole-heartedly that what was once sold as a treat to signify the end of Lent on Good Friday can now be purchased as early as Boxing Day.

We held off buying any this year, instead taking inspiration from our community of covid bakers to try our hand in the kitchen, and boy was it worth it. The recipe we share here is a slight adaptation of one found at www.topwithcinnamon.com. Our whole family loved it and so, with a few tweaks to make it our own, we post it here for your future baking pleasure.

The night before

The dough needs a long rise so its best to start the night before if you want to have buns for morning tea.

To begin, you make a Tangzhong. Don’t worry, we’d never heard of it before either. All you do, is mix 50g water with 2tbsp plain flour in a small saucepan, set it over a low heat and cook until is forms a thick paste. Keep stiring it and it should come together quickly for you. Set it aside to cool.

Next add to a bowl:

• 170gm water
• 60gm vegetable oil
• 50gm sugar
• 2tbsp mixed spice (get the best quality, freshest you can find from a spice retailer rather than a supermarket packet)
• 90gm sourdough starter

Mix them together with the cooled Tangzhong, trying to break up the Tanzhong as you go. It doesn’t need to be completely mixed in though.

We have a bread maker which is only ever used to mix dough. If you have one, we’d recommend cracking it out right now to take the arm work out of the next step.

Add the mixture to the bowl of the bread maker together with 450g bread flour and 1 tsp of salt. Turn it on and let it do it’s thing for 10-20 minutes until it looks good and mixed with a bit of elasticity to it. If you don’t have a mixer, knead away at the dough for 10 minutes or so, old style.

Once the dough is done, lift it out onto a clean surface and press or stretch it out into a circle. At this stage, our dough is about 1cm thick. Spread evenly over the top around 150g of good quality, fresh, mixed dried fruit, pressing it in lightly to the dough.

Taking one edge, roll it on itself until you have a log shape like a swiss roll.

Now the strangest step – coil the roll over on itself starting at one end until you end up with a snail shaped ball. Pop it into the bowl you used originally, making sure the surface is coated with a little vegetable oil to stop it sticking. Flip the snail roll over to make sure both sides get a little oil on them. Cover the bowl with a tea towel or other loose cover. Set aside until the morning.

The next morning

In the morning, the dough should have risen to be about double in size. The nights this week were cold on Our Tiny Farm so we had to give it a little help along in the mornings. Two options to help a slow riser along: put it in an oven that is just warmed then switched off; or, put the bowl over another bowl full of just boiled water for an hour or two.

Once you’re happy with the rise of the dough, tip it out onto a clean surface. This time, push or stretch the dough out into a rectangular shape. It doesn’t need to be huge, a bit bigger than an A4 sheet of paper is perfect.

Next, take a knife and cut it into 12 equal portions. One by one, shape each into a little ball. The buns tend to turn out best if the top side of the ball is smooth to begin with so put a little effort into that part. Just push any fruit that falls out back into the dough on the underside and you should be fine.

Put each ball into a lined baking tray leaving only 1cm between each one. Keeping them nice and close together means that after the rise, they will be touching and then after cooking, you will achieve hot cross bun nirvana of conjoined buns that need to be torn apart to be eaten. Yuuuummmm….

Cover the buns with a damp tea towel and place somewhere warmish for another 2-3 hours. Again you want them to double in size.

When your buns look as though they are nearly ready to bake, pre heat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Lightly beat one egg and brush the top of each bun with a pastry brush.

Next mix together in a bowl:

• 75gm flour
• 15gm vegetable oil
• 65gm water

You will end up with a paste that should be the thickness of icing you’d pipe on a cake. Add the paste to a piping bag, or other plastic bag and snip the end/corner off. Pipe crosses on the buns. Rather than doing individual buns, we like to pipe across the buns in a continuous stream, using a skewer to tamp down between buns.

Pop the tray into the hot oven for 25 minutes until the buns are golden.

With about 10 minutes of baking time to go, add 30gm water, 30gm sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon to a small saucepan. Warm over a low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Once your buns are ready, brush them with the sugar water mixture immediately and they will take on a gorgeous sheen and heavenly stickiness to the touch.

Wait as long as humanly possible (approx. 5 minutes) and devour.

You’re welcome.