Totally Orange Chelsea Buns

We all love Chelsea buns, myself included. I’ve made a lot! I’ve posted a couple of versions here and also here.

Yesterday I made sourdough and had left over sourdough starter. It is always a dilemma – what to do with your sourdough starter discard.

So I made Chelsea buns, using the left over starter, and a little commercial yeast as well. But you could totally make these buns using just yeast – we don’t all have a sourdough starter on hand! Use 7g yeast and up the milk to 150g.

These Chelseas are heavily flavoured with orange, in the dough and in the filling – juice, zest and candied orange. And some orange liqueur as well!

Very orange and delicious.

Ingredients

Dough

400g strong flour

125g sourdough starter discard

3g yeast

8g salt

50g caster sugar

2 free range eggs, at room temperature

100g tepid milk

Zest and juice of half an orange*

50g unsalted butter

Filling

50g sour cherries

50g cranberries

50g sultanas

50mls orange liqueur

50g very soft butter

50g golden caster sugar or raw sugar

100g marzipan

1 tablespoon finely chopped candied orange

Golden Syrup Glaze

2 tablespoons golden syrup heated to use as glaze

Orange Icing

Juice of 1/4 orange

100g icing sugar or enough icing sugar to make a dripping icing

* a blood orange if you can get it

Method

Put all the dough ingredients except the butter into the bowl of an electric mixer such as a KitchenAid. Mix with a dough hook or wooden spoon to a rough dough, cover and leave for 30 minutes to autolyse.

Knead the dough using the dough hook of the electric mixer for about 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

Add the butter, in small pieces, which needs to be very soft. You can soften the butter in the microwave. Mix using the dough hook until the dough is smooth, soft and windowpanes.

Cover the dough with cling wrap or plastic shower cap and leave to prove somewhere warm for 2-3 hours. (If using all yeast without sourdough starter, leave to rise for 1-2 hours only). The dough should have risen, if not quite doubled in size.

Line a large baking tin with baking paper. I used a 24cm (9.5 inch) round spring form tin, but you could equally use a rectangular 22cm x 23cm (9 inch x 13 inch) tin.

Remove the proven dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured board. Using floured hands, gently stretch the dough to a large rough rectangle.

For the filling, soak the sour cherries, cranberries and sultanas in the liqueur for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Spread the very soft butter all over the dough rectangle. Sprinkle the sugar over the butter. Scatter the chopped marzipan, chopped candied orange and then the dried fruit over the dough.

Now roll up the dough along the long side, as carefully as you can.

Cut the long roll into 12 even pieces. Place the pieces into the baking tin, cut side up, packing them in snugly together. If using a round tin, make a ring of buns in the tin and then put the remaining buns in the centre.

Put the tin into a large plastic bag to prove. Place into the fridge overnight or for 8-12 hours.

Half an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 160 degrees C fan or 180 degrees C non fan forced. Add a cast iron pan of water to the bottom of the oven to create steam for baking.

Take the tin out of the plastic bag and place the buns in the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the tops of the buns are golden brown but not burnt.

Once baked, remove from the oven. Brush the tops of the buns with the warmed golden syrup.

When cool, remove the buns from the tin, peeling off the baking paper.

To make the orange icing, mix the orange juice with the icing sugar. You may need more or less icing sugar – use enough to make an icing of dripping consistency.

Once the buns are quite cool, drizzle the orange icing over the tops of the buns.

Best eaten on the day!