Monday, March 10, 2014

Orange and White Chocolate Buns, Version 2

I got a new zest grater so decided to give the Orange and White Chocolate buns a second try. The new grater produced about 4 times the zest:

I modified the recipe to use the enriched dough from the cinnamon buns so I could use the mixer to knead it all. Also there's none of that milk scalding malarky.


I mixed up the dry ingredients and then added all the wet ingredients in one go, had the machine knead it for about 10 minutes and then added half the white chocolate and peel mix for a final 1 minute knead:


I let that prove for a couple of hours (it really does need a while) until it was double in size (sorry, no photo) then knocked it back and put it on a floured bench:


Rolled out until it was about ½ cm thick:


Sprinkled the remaining white chocolate and peel over the top and rolled:


Nicely rolled up. It'll inevitably be a little fatter in the middle. I just gave it a gentle squeeze to even it out a bit.


Sliced up into 1-2cm thick pieces and placed into tins. These are then covered in plastic and put in the fridge for later baking


Baked for 20 minutes at 190°C and they're very yummy indeed!


Ingredients
  • 3 teaspoons dry yeast 
  • 1 cup warm milk 
  • ½ cup sugar 
  • 115g melted butter 
  • 1 teaspoon salt 
  • 2 eggs 
  • 4 cups plain flour
  • ¾ tsp ground cardamom
  • 3 oranges, zest only
  • 200g white chocolate chips
  • 100g candied mixed peel
Method
  1. Mix all ingredients (but only half of the white chocolate and peel amounts) until a stretchy, sticky, smooth ball forms. I used a mixer with a dough hook, since the dough is quite sticky. It would be possible to do by hand, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you do need to then you can coat your hands and the bench with a spray of oil to prevent the dough sticking too much.
  2. Leave in a warm place until doubled in size. Since this is an enriched (with milk, butter and egg) dough it can take quite a while to prove - even a couple of hours).
  3. Punch and roll into a rectangle (golden ratio, please) until approximately ½ cm thick
  4. Spread remaining white chocolate and peel over the dough.
  5. Roll up lengthwise. Cut into pieces about 2-3cm wide.
  6. Place scrolls with a good separation (1-2cm) on a greased biscuit tray, or cake tins - any shape will do. At this point you have a few choices:
    1. cover lightly with a towel and leave to rise for about an hour, or until the scrolls are just about to touch, or
    2. cover with plastic and refrigerate up to two days for later baking, or
    3. keep longer if frozen (about a month, apparently) and thaw in the fridge overnight before baking.
  7. If you do refrigerate the scrolls then remove them from the fridge about 30 minutes before baking - while the oven is preheating.
  8. Heat oven to 190°C and bake for 10-15 minutes until brown around the edges.
So there we go - a much simpler enriched dough recipe and a better grater for the zesting resulting in a whole lot of yummy rolls!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Cinnamon Swirl Loaf

I decided to make pies for dinner last night and while we were at the shop we saw raisin bread on sale - and obvious cue for me to make some myself at home. I ended up not having raisins in the pantry so I just adapted the cinnamon scroll recipe into loaf form (by not cutting it up) and it ... mostly worked. There's a few notes:
  1. the loaf was too large for my loaf tin - I need to lose at least ½ cup of flour, probably more
  2. I shouldn't have included the butter in the cinnamon sugar mix
  3. leaving the loaf in the fridge overnight to bake next morning worked well, though I wrapped it in cling wrap and the loaf burst out of that in a couple of places
  4. we accidentally used 3½ tablespoons of cinnamon instead of 2½ and that was too much - there's a kinda gritty feel to the swirl (perhaps some cinnamon could be mixed into the dough instead if extra is desired)
  5. I should have buttered the baking tin as the sugar in the dough stuck to the tin in places
Other than that, it's a pretty tasty loaf. The butter in the swirls makes the loaf pull apart too easily though, so I can't toast it and butter it, which means it's a little dry to eat.

I'll give the cinnamon loaf another try with the above in mind. Maybe next weekend :)

Also, the pies were quite tasty (lamb, rosemary and vegetable) but there wasn't nearly enough gravy - something to watch out for next time.