An apology: since the chickens arrived at the end of October, I’ve been a little obsessed with building them a palace! Then in November, we discovered we were expecting a baby, so this then took control of my life for a short while! Now, half way through my pregnancy, I am beginning to return to my ‘normal’ self (!) and am taking up blogging again! To get me started, I thought a return to the Fresh from the Oven challenges might be just the thing!
This month’s challenge, hosted by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and was a little different. It asked us bake something yeasted, using flour where you know either where it was grown or where it was milled. I’m a little spoilt for choice in Essex, but opted for pure and simple plain flour from Marriage’s. No more than 3 miles from where I live, it seemed the perfect choice to help begin the Easter campaign: Hot Cross Buns.
I used a basic Delia recipe which you can find in full here, but the yeasty bit didn’t do what it was meant to, and despite them proving well, the buns were a little on the solid side! (My OH compared them with the use of a Christmas Pudding as a cannonball in Marriott Edgar’s poem, ‘Old Sam’s Christmas Pudding’!) If, however, you have your own way of making your yeast starter, I suggest you use it and adapt as necessary!
You need flour, sugar, currants, mixed peel, mixed spice. butter, eggs, yeast and salt.
Measure out your ingredients as per Delia recipe.
Combine into ‘buns’ and leave to prove.
I opted to make flour and water crosses, although I’d roll them out as thin as you can or then end up rather chewy!
Bake and glaze with a sugar syrup mix when done!
Have a look at what everyone baked at the Fresh from the Oven website – can’t wait to see how we all used our local flour!
