Hot Cross Buns

This post is late.  But then, my large thesis proposal is finished, and my tummy is full.  You can't win them all.

Still, given that here in the Antipodes it's the beginning of the colder season, I don't much care that Easter is behind us.  I plan to keep making spicy, fruity buns for the next little while.  Like most bread making, this kind of baking is far less work than most people suppose.  The flip-side, however, is you need to be pretty housebound to keep track of the rises and the kneading - you need to start these puppies the night before and they need about 24 hours in total.  Do you have a thesis or some other large manuscript to write too? Snap. Let's bake!

I hadn't made hot cross buns before, but through Leith's brother Ian, I was given the Thomas Family Recipe.  Now the Thomas family are formidable bakers, so it was with great confidence that I knuckled down to these buns.  I did, with some trepidation, alter the recipe slightly (by adding MOAR SPICE AND FRUIT because as you all know by now, I like spice) and while I don't know what the original would have been like, I can tell you that these were scrumptious.

Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 teaspoons of yeast
• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 4 cups plain flour
• 3 teaspoons allspice
• 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1/2 cup sultanas
• 1/2 cup currants
• 1/4 cup mixed peel
• 1/2 cup extra flour and 4 tablespoons water for crosses
• Golden syrup or treacle and chilli powder to glaze

Before you go to bed, mix 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in 1 cup of warm water.  Leave for 10 minutes until it starts to look good and foamy. 

In the meantime, mix 2 cups of the flour with the remaining dry ingredients and fruit in a bowl, and leave a well in the centre.  Add the yeast mixture with the oil to your dry ingredients and stir all together with a wooden spoon.  Cover with plastic wrap and leave out overnight.

The next day, the mixture should have more or less doubled in size.  As Ian most wisely suggested, the longer you leave it the tastier it will become.  At about 2pm my yearning for buns got the better of me and I came back to it.

Mix the remaining 2 teaspoons of yeast with the 1/4 cup warm water, and leave for 10 minutes.  Then add this liquid to the mixture, and the 2 remaining cups of flour to the mixture.  At this point you'll need to tip the whole lot onto a clean surface and knead the mixture thoroughly to incorporate all the flour.  Keep going until the dough is smooth and forms a lovely large ball.  This took me about 20 minutes or a little more.  It is a stiff dough and the kneading is hard work, but this is the only really hard part about the whole process.  Also, this kind of thing can lead to Linda Hamilton arms. So there's an upside.

Heat the oven to 200 degrees and lightly dust with flour a low, rectangular baking tray (like a lamington tray).  Divide your dough into 12 equal parts and roll into balls with your hands.  Place them side by side in the tray.  You want them to nestle up against each other a little, so that when they rise they'll push each other up rather than spreading out.  Cover and leave on top of the heating oven for another 45 minute rise.

When they're ready, mix the extra flour and water to a thick paste and using a piping bag with a narrow nose (or a plastic bag with the corner snipped off), draw your crosses (or customised initials if you happen to know an awesome 6 year old, which I do).

Bake for 20 minutes. 

While they are cooling in the tray, mix a big spoon of golden syrup with a shake of chilli powder (or skip the chilli if you're so inclined) and a little hot water.  Using a brush, generously glaze the tops of the buns while they're still hot. 

Serve the buns with lashings of good butter and cup of tea.  With the tree leaves turning golden and the mornings increasingly crisp, they also make the breakfast of champions.  Mmmmm.  Spending the long weekend studying doesn't have to be quite such a bummer after all.

Breakfast pizza with pico di gallo

Holy crap you guys.  This pizza is in the oven right now and I'm so excited about eating it that I thought I'd start blogging about it while I waited....  I can't help but feel that weekend breakfasts have just about reached their zenith!


Pizza dough (for two small-medium pizzas):

•  2 cups strong or wholewheat flour
• 1 cup semolina
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• teaspoon each of yeast, sugar and salt

Toppings:

• 8 eggs
• 6 rashers bacon
• parmesan cheese
• mozzerella cheese

Pico di Gallo

• 1 firm red tomato
• 1 small spanish onion
• coriander
• mint
• 1lime
• 1 small red chilli

Turn the oven up as high as it will go.  Then mix the warm water, yeast, sugar and salt in a jug, cover and leave for five minutes so that foamy bubbles form on the top.  In another bowl, put the flour and semolina and make a well in the middle.  I found this Atta flour, a wholemeal flour used for Indian flatbreads, and decided to try it out for pizza.  Mix the yeasty water in and tip the whole lot out onto a floured bench and knead for about 3 minutes or until the dough starts to get stretchy.  Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, and leave in a warm place (such as on top of the oven) for about 30 minutes.  This will give you time to prepare all your toppings.

Cut the rind off your bacon and chop into chunky strips.  Fry in a non-stick pan, there's no need to add oil, until crispy.

Make the pico di gallo by finely chopping the tomato, chilli, onion, coriander and mint and mix them in a bowl.  Squeeze the juice of the lime over the top.  You can add a pinch of salt if you like.  The more finely you chop the ingredients, the more delicious the pico di gallo is.  I don't understand that science of this, but trust me, it is true.  So sharpen your knife and use a firm tomato!

 
Finally, grate your cheeses.

By this time, the dough should have doubled in size.  Punch it down, tear it in half, and press or roll it out into the size of your base.  It will puff up so make it as thin as you can.  Then dress your pizza!  I started by scattering the cheeses, then the bacon, and finally cracking four eggs on top.  Put the whole lot in the oven for 8 minutes or until the whites of the eggs are cooked.

When the pizza is cooked, scatter the pico di gallo over the top and serve with Tabasco sauce.  Then hop aboard the breakfast pizza train, destination: Nomtown.  Because it's pizza you can eat it in front of the telly.  We chose to catch up on episodes of The Daily Show. It might just have been one of the more perfect Saturday mornings.

Breakfast pie

This weekend I'm going away with my family for three days of sailing.  It's going to be sunny, gorgeous and relaxing.  There's also going to be six hungry people and one teeny tiny galley.  So I pondered what to bring that would be wholesome and nourishing and delicious and easy to prepare.  The first thing I thought of was Egg and Bacon Pie!  But there will be vegetarians in our midst, so I removed the bacon and added other things to make: Breakfast Pie!

You could make this pie with anything you want. As long as it has eggs.


Ingredients:

• Puff pastry
• 10 eggs
• 1 punnet of grape tomatoes
• Baby spinach, a handful, chopped
• Grated tasty cheese (approx 150g or as much as you want)
• salt and pepper to season
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar

I decided to prepare my tomatoes before putting them in my pie to make them extra tomatoey, tangy and succulent.  Chop them in half, drizzle olive oil and balsamic over them and season with salt and pepper.  Put them in the oven at about 140 C for about 20 minutes or until they are just starting to burn a little and get sticky on the bottom. 

Next, prepare your pie pan.  Take two sheets of pastry out of the oven and let them defrost, then preheat the oven to 200 Celcius (or 220 C if your oven isn't fan forced).  Grease your pie pan and lay a sheet of pasty across it.  Using a fork, prick tiny wholes in the bottom of the pastry to help the base get crispy when it bakes.

Mix your ingredients.  Start by lightly whisking nine eggs.  Add the spinach, tomatoes, cheese and salt and pepper to taste and toss through. 

Pour this mixture into your pie base and sit the chimney in the middle. Cut a slit in the other sheet of pastry to fit over your pie chimney, if you're using one.  Press the edges of the pastry together with your thumbs and trim the excess pastry. Then, and this is very important, cut some kind of daggy decoration out of the pastry remainders.  Mine says "PIE"!

Brush the top of your pie with egg wash and put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes.  Once it's cooled, simply slice and serve.

You could put anything you fancy in this pie.  I tend to think along lines you might associate with omelettes.  I had meant to add olives, but when the time for mixing ingredients came, I simply forgot.  Fetta would work well if you prefer it to tasty cheese, and capsicum and mushrooms would be perfect.  Carnivores should dabble with bacon or sucuk.