London buns

My recipe book collection is steadily growing. 2 of my most recent acquisitions were stumbled across while I was on a day trip to the Lake District. Added bonus; they only cost me £1.40 each. So, flicking through one of the books, I pulled out a recipe that I fancied doing.

I also picked the recipe for “London Buns” because it was one featuring caraway seeds, an ingredient that had come up in bready discussion recently as one that was very traditional in English baking. I’d never used them in anything myself before and required a good sniff before starting... my best description of them is as something between fennel and mint. Random ingredient sniffing done, it was on to the actual baking.

Which didn’t go entirely according to plan. The recipe was written in pounds and ounces, which wasn’t really an issue because it had a conversion table in the back. But then I also think that the recipe wasn’t written quite right. Or maybe that my memory is so shocking that, from turning from the conversion table back to the recipe page, I forgot the amount and weighed it out slightly wrong. Even then, I think I was only out by 50g... which doesn’t account for the problems I had with the milk.

I weighed out my flour (slightly wrongly, but just put that to the back of your mind for the moment), added the rest of the dry mix (salt, nutmeg, candied peel and caraway seeds) and then got on with the wet mix. This told me to cream the yeast with the sugar... which I didn’t like the sound of, because I’ve read that too much sugar slows the yeast down. So, instead, I mixed the yeast with the milk (4 fluid ounces... pay attention, this will become important), then added the caster sugar and melted butter. So far, so not following the recipe.

The wet mix then went into the dry and I began to mix. The recipe implied that I should end up with a soft and pliable dough.... which there wasn’t a hope in hell of with the amount of milk that I originally added. After repeated trips to the fridge (for the milk) and the microwave (to warm said milk up), in the process doing my usual stunt of getting dough all over the kitchen, I eventually got the dough to something resembling soft and elastic. But it did mean that I’d tripled the amount of milk that the original recipe had specified, although it did take it up to a ratio of flour to fluid that I was more familiar with. All this milk adding, and the fact that the dough had been so tight to start off with, meant that I’d been kneading for something like half an hour. I’m going to have some good arm muscles by the end of all this baking.

The dough went away to double in size. After 1 hour of being in the mildly warm conservatory, it didn’t appear to have risen at all. But, the oven had just been finished with a was cooling down, so mum suggested I shove it in there with the door ajar. Now, we had a little bit of movement, but the oven cooled down quick. With my oven being a fan oven, however, it has some very low settings... so, with fingers crossed, I turned the oven back on and checked on the dough regularly. Hurrah! The upward movement of the dough actually started to happen and it doubled in size about an hour later than expected.

I turned out the dough and started to divide it into 12, but I fancied being accurate with something for a change and so weighed all the pieces so that they were even. Each got formed into a ball and I used the opportunity to try a little ambidextrous ball rolling. They then went onto a greased baking tray, got covered and went back in the slightly warm oven. It felt a bit weird to be sticking them in the oven at this stage but they seemed to do alright. Probably wouldn’t be a good idea with something with a higher fat content, because they got a tad sweaty, but they did puff up nicely.

I took them out of the oven before I preheated it. For that reason, and because they needed brushing with egg yolk. 10 minutes at 220°C left them as little domes topped with a deep-brown shiny patch where the glaze had been.

Cutting into them half an hour later (I’m beginning to know how long I have to leave the bread before I can hack into it), the pocket of air bubbles were quite tightly packed, which didn’t surprise me after the problems I’d had with the amount of liquid in the dough, but not so dense that they weren’t soft. The flavour from the caraway seeds came through... and I’ll stick with my original judgement of them being somewhere between fennel and mint. The bit that didn’t seem to make much a difference was the candied peel; the amount in the recipe seemed a bit stingy and I’d say that you could probably put more in if you’re a particular peel fan... you could probably even double it.

With the right proportions in the recipe, the London bun isn’t a bad one. I’d suggest serving it like a toasted teacake... namely, toasted.

Simplified Recipe

Ingredients

450g strong white bread flour

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

30g candied peel

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

10g fresh yeast

330ml warm milk

57g (ish) caster sugar

57g (ish) butter, melted

1 egg yolk, beaten

Method

1.       Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, then add the nutmeg, candied peel and caraway seeds

2.       In a jug, mix together the milk and yeast, then add the sugar and the melted butter and mix well

3.       Pour the liquid into the dry mix and combine until it comes together as a soft, sticky dough. Knead until smooth and elastic (around 10 minutes). Place the dough in a lightly-oiled bowl, cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in size (about 1 hour, but don’t bet on it if you’re house is as cold as mine)

4.       Turn the dough out and divide into 12 even pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and place on a lightly-greased baking tray. Cover and leave in a warm place to double in size again (about 30 minutes)

5.       Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F or gas mark 7)

6.       Brush the top of each bun with the beaten egg yolk

7.       Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until golden  and they give off a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom

8.       Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool before eating

References

Favourite Home Baking Recipes, Carol Wilson, J. Salmon Limited