Yesterday, Saturday, I made my annual batch of ANZAC biscuits, that delicious treat associated with Australian and New Zealand soldiers of the First World War, in preparation for ANZAC Day 2022 on 25 April.
The wonderful blog “The Cook and the Curator”, from the team at Sydney Living Museums, has done some research into the origin of ANZAC biscuits.
“There has been much debate as to the origins of the iconic Anzac biscuit, and whether they were sent in care packages to soldiers at war, or if they were made by soldiers at ‘the front’. They were certainly enjoyed by Australians long before the First World War, but under different names.”
The Cook and the Curator also note that coconut is an optional ingredient and it wasn’t added till the 1930s. By all means add some to to your biscuits, but personally I’m not a fan.
My recipe is based on this authentic recipe, with a small tweak or two.
I add golden syrup, as I love the toffee flavour it imparts. Most recipes do include golden syrup.
Somewhere I read in a recipe that browning the butter after melting it gives a greater depth of flavour. It really does! To compensate for the fact that you lose a little bit of the butter by browning it, I have added another 15g of butter to the recipe.
It really is a straightforward ANZAC biscuit recipe – very easy to put together and quick to bake.
Eat the biscuits on the day they are baked but they will keep well too, if there are any left!
Ingredients
165g salted butter
180g rolled oats
120g plain flour
125g brown sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons boiling water
Method
Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. Line 2 oven trays with baking paper.
Place the butter in a small saucepan and heat until melted. Once the butter is melted, cook for about 3-4 minutes, swirling the pan often. The butter will foam and turn a golden brown. Remove from the heat and put into a bowl to cool slightly.
Mix the rolled oats, flour and sugar in a large bowl.
Combine the melted butter and golden syrup in the same saucepan. Add the bicarbonate of soda and boiling water and whisk to combine. Remove from heat.
Add the butter/golden syrup mixture and stir until well combined.
Take tablespoons of mixture and make into balls. Place the balls onto the baking trays, allowing space for spreading. Don’t flatten the balls!
Bake for 15 minutes or until biscuits are dark golden brown. Remove the biscuits from the oven and cool on the trays. The biscuits will firm up as they cool. Now remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight tin. They keep well for a few days.
I’ve posted my family’s Christmas cake recipe several times over the years. It’s a wonderful cake, a recipe passed down from my grandmother over a hundred years ago. It continues to be made with great tradition and enthusiasm 4 generations on by sisters, mothers and daughters!
It’s certainly one of the baking experiences I look forward to every year at Christmas time.
The original cake recipe was for a “12 Pound Christmas Cake”. The recipe probably originated from the 1800s and was the recipe for the bottom tier of a wedding cake.
This version of the cake is very big – and will feed a lot of people! My sister still makes this cake, and I do on occasion. My favourite version of the cake however, is the “half size” cake, which I generally make each year.
It’s the quantities and method for this version I’ve listed below.
I’ve included a number of photos of the cake – same recipe, but made at different Christmas times.
Ingredients
250g butter 250g brown sugar 315g plain flour 375g raisins 375g sultanas 125g glacé cherries 65g glacé peaches 65g glacé pears 125g glacé apricots 65g glacé pineapple 65g crystallised ginger 65g mixed peel (optional) 6 large free range eggs 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon almond essence 1/2 teaspoon glycerine Juice of half an orange Finely grated peel of half an orange 1/4 cup of good brandy/whisky – extra 1/4 cup of brandy/whisky to pour over the hot cake when it comes out of the oven.
Method Grease a cake tin and line with baking paper or aluminum foil. I use an 18cm or 7″ square tin or a 18cm or 7″ diameter round tin. You may end up with left over mixture with this size, so you could go up a size. I like a high cake and this cake doesn’t rise so you can fill the smaller tins fairly full. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C then turn back to 135 degrees C. The principle of cooking a rich fruitcake is to put the cake into a preheated oven and cook very slowly. This size cake does take a long time! The original recipe says to mix by hand in a large basin. This was lots of fun when we were growing up making the family Christmas cake but now I suggest using an electric mixer. Cream butter and sugar and beat in the eggs one at a time.
Mix in the sifted flour lightly. Stir in spices, essences, glycerine, fruit juice and brandy/whisky, and finally stir in the fruit the larger varieties of which have previously been cut roughly. There is no need to wash the fruit. If the fruit is wet it tends to sink to the bottom of the cake.
Bake about 1½ to 2 hours or until the top is pale brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the cake.
It’s a little hard to be more precise than this as the weather, the quality of the flour and individual ovens have a lot to do with cooking time. You can put a piece of foil over the top of the cake during the last hour of cooking if the cake browns too quickly. When the cake is cooked, remove from the oven and pierce all over with a skewer. Pour ½ cup of brandy/whisky over the hot cake and wrap in a towel till cool. Turn out of the tin onto a board or large flat plate.
Almond Icing (Marzipan Icing) 250g ground almonds 375g icing sugar 1 egg white Juice of ½ lemon
Mix all the ingredients to make a stiff dough. Divide the dough into sections – one large ball for the top of the cake, the rest for the sides of the cake. Brush the cake with apricot jam which will help the almond paste to stick. Let the cake rest for a day.
Royal Icing 2 egg whites 500g icing sugar Juice of 1 lemon
Beat eggs lightly, add icing sugar and lemon juice. Apply to cake with a palette knife. Be generous with this icing, to create a “snowy” effect. Leave to set for at least a couple of hours.
The cake keeps well – up to a year – although it is at its best when eaten within 3 months. But it never lasts beyond New Year in my house!
Simnel cake is traditionally made for Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent.
I’ve been very interested in the Simnel cake, what it’s made of and its history. It’s a light fruitcake with two layers of marzipan, one layer baked in the centre of the cake, and one layer placed on top of the cake. The cake is adorned with eleven balls of marzipan, representing Jesus’ Apostles, minus Judas Iscariot. This last reference reminds us that this is an Easter cake, and can also be eaten during the Easter period and on Easter Day.
My version is baked in a slightly bigger tin than most recipes specify. I wanted a cake with a bigger diameter to serve more people. I went with blow torching the marzipan on the cake rather then putting it under a grill, as this was so much easier and you can control the heat source.
This year I made my usual recipe. It’s rich with marzipan, a good layer in the centre and plenty to decorate the cake. Instead of the traditional yellow ribbon to decorate, I went with red. And I added some green glacé cherries for the middle of the cake – eleven of course!
Ingredients
Marzipan
335 icing sugar
260g caster sugar
525g ground almonds
3 large free-range eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons apricot jam (to stick the marzipan onto the cake)
Fruit cake
Juice and zest of an orange
Juice and zest of a lemon
500g sultanas, raisins and currants, in any mix you prefer
150g glacé cherries
225g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ginger, allspice – any or all of these are fine, use what you prefer
3 large free-range eggs
175g soft butter
175g brown sugar
Method
Make the marzipan first, as this needs to rest for an hour or so before it goes into the cake.
Sift the icing sugar and caster sugar into a large bowl, and then mix through the ground almonds.
Beat the eggs with the almond extract and lemon juice in a separate bowl. Stir into the dry ingredients with a large spoon or spatula to make a rough dough. Use your hands to continue to turn the mixture into a dough that is able to be rolled out.
Put some icing sugar onto a work surface – bench top or ideally a large wooden board. Knead the marzipan for a couple of minutes until it’s a smooth dough.
Put the marzipan dough into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave for at least an hour, preferably two, to allow the ground almonds to swell and absorb some of the moisture from the eggs.
For the cake, put the orange and the lemon juice in a small saucepan and add the dried fruit and cherries. Bring to a simmer over a medium heat and heat for two minutes, stirring until the liquid disappears. Be careful not to burn the fruit by cooking it dry. Remove from the heat and leave to completely cool. Putting the fruit into a bowl and sticking it in the fridge can speed things up if you’re short on time.
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C non fan forced, or 140 degrees fan forced.
Grease a 22cm spring form pan and line the base with two layers of baking paper.
Put the flour and spices in a large bowl. Whisk the eggs in a smaller bowl.
Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer such as a KitchenAid until light and fluffy and well mixed. Make sure all the mixture, even at the bottom of the bowl, is well incorporated.
Add the whisked eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. To stop the mixture curdling – this can easily happen when adding eggs to butter and sugar – mix in a tablespoon of flour after each egg addition.
Gently fold in the flour to the rest of the mixture by hand. Stir in the dried fruit and the orange and lemon zest. Spoon half of the mixture into the springform tin, trying to get a smooth surface.
Working with marzipan. Divide the marzipan into three equal balls. Weighing them is probably the best way to do this. Wrap two of the balls in plastic wrap to prevent them drying out.
Place a large length of baking paper on your work surface and dust with icing sugar. Put the remaining ball ono the baking paper and cover with another length. Roll the ball into a circle that’s bigger than the springform tin. You can check this by putting the cake tin on top of the rolled marzipan and making sure the marzipan is 1-2 cms bigger than the tin.
Now peel the top layer of baking paper off the marzipan and put the marzipan circle carefully on top of the cake mixture in the tin, then peel off the remaining baking paper.
Put the rest of the cake mixture on top of the marzipan and smooth the surface.
Place the springform tin into the preheated oven and bake for about approximately 1 hour 30 minutes, or until the cake is golden-brown, and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. If the cake is browning quickly but is obviously not cooked, cover the top with some aluminium foil.
Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave it to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Then remove from the tin, peel off the lining paper, put the cake on a wire rack and leave to completely cool.
Marzipan topping. This cake is best decorated using the bottom of the cake as its flatter. Turn the cake upside down and put onto a plate or board to allow you to decorate.
Place a length of baking paper onto the work surface with more icing sugar. Put one of the marzipan balls onto the paper and cover with another piece of baking paper. As before, roll the ball into a circle that’s bigger than the springform tin. You can check this by putting the cake tin on top of the rolled marzipan and making sure the marzipan is 1-2 cms bigger than the tin.
Heat the apricot jam in a microwave on low, or in a small saucepan on low heat for a couple of minutes.
Brush the surface of the cake with the warm jam and cover with the marzipan circle. The circle should just hang over the edge of the cake. Press the marzipan gently onto the cake, easing out any lumps. You can neaten up any overhang that’s too long with a sharp knife.
Now take the remaining marzipan and roll it into eleven balls to represent the Apostles. Weigh the balls to make them uniform – 20g for small balls or 25g for bigger ones. In either case you will have marzipan left over – always welcome as a sweet treat.
Dip each ball into the warmed apricot jam. Position them round the outside of the cake.
Now for the fun part – get out your cook’s blowtorch and lightly scorch the marzipan topping and balls! Be careful not to overdo it. If you haven’t got a blowtorch, put the cake under the grill for a couple of minutes until scorched but not burnt.
Place the cake onto a serving plate or board. Put a yellow ribbon – traditional – around the cake. I went for a green ribbon, with its associations of the renewal of life, appropriate for the Easter season.
Here’s a trifle recipe for Christmas from the archives. I thought it worth posting now if you’re looking for ideas for interesting looking – and tasting – deserts for Christmas 2022.
The recipe is adapted from a recipe created by Queen Vanilla products and Dr Oetker products. I liked the idea of the cheesecake filling instead of custard and cream. The recipe also created some green chocolate bark, which I thought pretty festive too.
Ingredients
Cake and berries:
4 x 250g punnets berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, or any others you fancy). Frozen berries are fine too, I used a mixture of both.
A good slosh of an orange liqueur (Cointreau, Grand Marnier)
A little caster sugar to taste if the berries are too sharp in flavour
2 sponge cake layers (bought is fine here as it’s only going to be dowsed in liqueur and berry juice)
Cheesecake filling:
280g cream cheese
90g unsalted butter
2 2/3 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
450 mls cream
Green chocolate bark:
150g original Oreos roughly blitzed in the food processor – you should have some bigger bits and some crumbs
300g white chocolate
A few drops green food colouring
Method
Combine all the berries in bowl, leaving a good handful for decorating the top of the trifle. You should cut the strawberries in halves unless they are tiny. Splosh on some orange liqueur, and add a little caster sugar to taste if the berries need sweetening. Leave for a few hours to allow the berries to release their juices.
Cut up the sponge into squares about 5 cms 0r 2 inches. It really doesn’t matter too much – they just need to be able to fit into your trifle bowl. You will also need to cut some odd shapes to fill in the gaps. Make a layer of sponge on the bottom of the bowl. Add a decent layer of berries, making sure you spoon some of the liquid over the cake so that it turns red.
To make the cheesecake filling, beat cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add icing sugar gradually, beating till the mixture is well combined. Add the vanilla bean paste. Whip the cream in separate bowl until just thickened, then fold into the cheesecake mixture.
Add layer of cheesecake mixture to the berries layer in the trifle bowl.
Repeat the layering – sponge, berries and juices and cheesecake mixture, ending with a berry layer. The number of layers you get will depend on the size of your bowl and your generosity in layering. As you can see from the photo I got 3 layers of sponge and berries and 2 of cheesecake mixture. You should leave enough of the cheesecake mixture to decorate the top (3 tablespoons or so should do it). Refrigerate until ready to finish the decorations and serve.
To make green chocolate bark, heat the white chocolate in small pieces in a microwave safe bowl on medium power in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each interval, until the chocolate is completely melted. Add the green food colouring and chopped Oreos. Spread the mixture onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Refrigerate until set.
To finish the trifle, pile the remaining cheesecake mixture on the top of the trifle. Scatter the left over berries on the top of the “snowy” mixture. I used only fresh raspberries for the top, as they looked the most elegant. Break up the green chocolate bark and place as artistically – or in my case rustically – as you please. You don’t need to use all the bark – the recipe makes quite a large quantity. On the other hand if there are small children around they will love the white (now green) chocolate and you could use the whole lot on the pudding!
Here’s something different for Christmas Day lunch. If you’re looking for an alternative to Christmas pudding, what about a cheesecake? Make this cheesecake festive for the day by decorating it with fresh and sugared fruit, and chocolate leaves.
The recipe hails from the Sydney County Council in the 1960s and it continues to be my go to recipe for cheesecake. What makes it really delicious is the sour cream topping!
You could make it using an electric mixer, but I find it really easy to make using a food processor.
Cream Cheese Filling 500g cream cheese 150g sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste 1 tablespoon lemon juice 4 free range eggs
Topping 300 ml sour cream 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 dessertspoon lemon juice 1 level tablespoon sugar
Method
Crush biscuits very finely and add nutmeg and cinnamon. Melt butter in a saucepan, remove from heat and quickly stir in biscuit crumbs.
Press firmly into greased 8″ springform tin bringing mixture within 1/2 ‘ from the top of the tin.
Put cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice in a bowl and beat well. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
Pour mixture into uncooked crumb crust and bake in a moderate oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven.
Beat together the topping ingredients and pour over hot cheesecake. Return to oven and bake for a further 10 minutes.
Cool, then store in refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Decoration
Decorate with sugar frosted fresh fruit and chocolate leaves. I used cherries, strawberries and black grapes for this cheesecake. To make the sugar frosted fruit, coat fruit in lightly beaten egg white then dip in caster sugar.
To make the chocolate leaves, dip sturdy leaves in melted dark chocolate, leave to set in the fridge, then gently peel away the leaves leaving the chocolate imprint intact.
Barmbrack is a traditional Irish fruit cake. It’s usually associated with Halloween, although I think it can be eaten any time of the year!
It’s a really simple bake, a cross between cake and bread. It has no butter or oil in it. The moist flavour comes from soaking dried fruit in tea. Irish whiskey is also included in the soak for an added kick!
My version is “tropical” because I substituted rum for whiskey, and I added pineapple to the dried fruit. And some cream cheese frosting made it a bit more luxurious.
Ingredients
375g mixed dried fruit
100g tinned pineapple, cut into small pieces
50ml dark rum
250ml cold tea
225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
125g brown sugar
1/2teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 free range egg
Cream cheese frosting
60g light cream cheese *
30g softened butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon pineapple juice
150g icing sugar
Glacé or tinned pineapple for decoration
Method
Place the mixed dried fruit in a bowl and pour over the rum and cold tea. Leave to soak overnight.
The next day, preheat the oven to 170 degrees C or 160 degrees C fan forced.
Grease a 20 or 22cm square cake tin and line base with baking paper. Or you could use the more traditional loaf tin – grease and line a 900g loaf tin.
I used a square cake tin for my version as I was able to cut the barmbrack into more pieces.
Mix the flour, baking powder, brown sugar and spices in a large bowl. Break in the egg and mix with a wooden spoon.
Add the tea and rum liquid a tablespoon at a time. You may not need all of it – add enough to make a fairly wet dough. But don’t add so much that you end up with soup!
Stir in the mixed fruit and pineapple until everything is combined. Spoon the batter into the lined tin, and put in the preheated oven.
Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Wrap in cling film and aluminium foil and leave for 1-2 days. The flavour matures over a couple of days.
Unwrap the cake. You could serve as is, with lashings of butter which is traditional, or you could make a cream cheese frosting.
Put the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and pineapple juice in an electric mixer, or even in a food processor. Mix or process until well combined.
Add the icing sugar gradually, beating until all is combined.
Spread the icing liberally over the barmbrack and decorate with pieces of glacé or tinned pineapple.
The barmbrack will keep well for a few days.
*you could use normal cream cheese not the light version – if so, you would need less icing sugar. Just add enough icing sugar to make a smooth icing.
This egg rich loaf, part bread, part cake, laden with colourful glacé fruit and flaked almonds is a truly festive bake for religious occasions, such as Easter.
It’s an Austrian recipe, called “Bischofsbrot”, the name alluding to its Christian origins.
I became interested in this recipe after reading about in a publication of Sydney Living Museums, that wonderful organisation that looks after many historic properties in Sydney and NSW. The link to the original recipe is here.
The recipe comes from Rose Seidler’s recipe collection. Rose was the mother of the renowned architect Harry Seidler, whose family emigrated to Australia in 1946. There are a number of Rose’s recipes written in German in the SLM collection.
Curator and colonial gastronomer at SLM, Dr Jacqui Newling has researched and baked the recipe, from a translation by Avril Vorsay. This certainly whetted my appetite to give it a go!
It’s a pretty simple recipe – the hardest part is probably separating the eggs. It’s traditionally baked in a loaf tin, but I baked mine in 16cm/6.5 inch springform tin. This made a higher, round loaf.
Another thing to remember is that you need to wait a day before you cut it. I guess that patience is a virtue!
Ingredients 140g butter, softened, + 1 teaspoon extra butter to grease the baking pan 140g icing sugar, sifted +extra to dust the loaf after baking 6 eggs, separated 200g glacé fruit, diced* Zest of 1 small lemon* 100g slivered or blanched almonds 140g plain flour, sifted, + 1 tablespoon extra to dust the fruit
*You can replace the glacé fruit with a mixture of colourful dried fruit such as apricots, apples, sultanas and cranberries, soaked in freshly boiled water for 15 minutes and then well drained. Replace the lemon zest with store-bought mixed peel for additional citrus flavour, colour and texture. Note: Bishop’s bread needs to be made a day before serving.
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced). Grease the base and sides of a loaf tin* with 1 teaspoon of butter and dust with a little flour.
Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg yolks one at a time. Dust the fruit and zest with a tablespoon of flour and toss to lightly coat the pieces (this helps to prevent them sinking to the bottom of the cake). Stir the fruit and the almonds into the bowl, and fold in half the flour. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold them through the batter with the remaining flour, being careful not to overwork the batter.
Pour the batter into the loaf tin and bake for 40–50 minutes, or until the loaf is nicely browned on top and cooked through. Test by inserting a skewer into the centre of the loaf – the skewer should come out clean and dry.
Allow the loaf to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer it to a wire rack and dust it with the sifted extra icing sugar.
Note: Once completely cooled, store the loaf overnight in a container covered with a cloth. Do not slice until the next day.
It’s not a surprise to readers of this blog that I love Shetland. I fell in love when I first visited in 2019.
These northerly islands with stunning scenery, rugged coastlines, windswept beaches and marvellous unique wildlife capture the imagination.
I love the islands’ Viking heritage, too, evident in archaeology, language and place names.
But it’s the food and food culture that really draw me to the islands. An abundance of local produce, a cultural shared food heritage from the many influences of sea locked islands and a generosity of spirit to share and connect with food make for some wonderful food experiences.
So it was with great delight that I learned that the Taste of Shetland Food Festival was back again as a live event in 2022.
The pandemic has put on hold so many festivals and celebrations, and when a food festival returns from a place I hold dear, there was only one thing to do – book my ticket and fly from Australia!
So a week in Shetland – some walks, tours and good restaurants – culminating in a fabulous foodie weekend. I crammed a lot into one Saturday in the Clickimin Leisure Complex in Lerwick as I already had my Sunday organised going to Unst, with Chris Dyer of Garths Croft, which was another unique cultural experience in Shetland not to be missed.
So here’s a snapshot of my day and some photos which I hope capture the spirit of the Festival. First up, after the official opening, Nick Nairn, Celebrity Chef Cooking Demonstration:
A highly entertaining and informative session where Nick cooked lamb tikka skewers, sassermaet meatballs and miso salmon. All highlighting local Shetland ingredients. Nick knows his stuff and I’ve never laughed so much in a cooking show!
Next, a wander round the stalls. So many fabulous food and drink providers showing off their products! I could have eaten half of Shetland in a walk around. And I possibly did eat quite a lot of the lovely samples…
Too many providers to mention them all here, the photos will give you the idea. And lunch was a delicious beef pie from Scalloway Meat Co and a chance to sit down!
The afternoon was spent in two fabulous masterclasses, learning more about sourdough and bannocks.
Sourdough by Gus Dow taught this sourdough baker a whole lot more about the science of sourdough. Gus started with a Halloween pumpkin loaf fresh from the oven and then baked a couple of batard loaves, as well as showing how to make a sourdough starter. Great stuff!
Shetland Bannocks by Kevin Smith was the definitive workshop on bannocks for me, giving me insiders’ tips to shaping and cooking these notoriously tricky flour items. And I learnt some new Shetland vocab too. Can’t wait to try these new skills!
I also got to meet Marian Armitage, Festival Chair, “Proud Shetlander, home cook and award winning food writer”. Wow! My Festival experience was complete.
For more info on the Festival and A Taste of Shetland, click here for the website.
A great day all round, meeting, talking and eating – so congratulations to the organisers and to all involved for a successful 2022 Festival.
I really look forward to baking hot cross buns each Easter. And each Easter I try a new recipe or tweak one of my old ones. They’re all delicious – I’ve never met a hot cross bun I didn’t like!
So I’m a bit late this year, but I will be making the 2022 version later this week.
But in the meantime, here are the links to my favourite hot cross buns, from the experts from the Great British Bake-off, to Jamie Oliver and Paul Hollywood, to my own sourdough version.
So long as the buns are beautifully baked a deep golden brown and served with lashings of butter, you can’t go wrong.
I visited Shetland pre-pandemic when we could travel from home in Australia to the UK. I was so taken with the islands – the breathtaking scenery, the wildlife, the history and culture and of course the food!
This recipe is based on a recipe called Yeast Buns from Margaret B Stout’s “Cookery for Northern Wives” published in 1925. This book documents many Shetland recipes and was an insight into traditional cooking.
I made and blogged the buns a while back, see here. I’ve made a few more tweaks this time. The original recipe makes a lot of buns! So this time I divided the recipe in two, making a batch of 12 buns and I also made a lovely large fruit bun, with lemon icing.
I converted the imperial measurements to metric. doing a little bit of rounding up or down, but as I wanted to keep the integrity of the original measurements, I didn’t change anything too drastically.
I’ve also adapted the recipe to make in a KitchenAid or similar.
I’ve tweaked the ingredients in these ways. I substituted instant yeast for fresh yeast. I added a lot more more dried fruit than in the original, adding extra fruit again for the large fruit bun. I also added some more flavour in the form of vanilla extract and almond essence, as well as cinnamon and allspice.
I made the large fruit bun in a paper panettone case, but you could make it in a large high sided cake tin. You would end up with a slightly wider bun, but with less height.
Ingredients
For the sponge
227g strong flour
9g instant yeast
1 teaspoon caster sugar
426 mls milk
Mixture
567g strong flour
113g caster sugar
113g butter
2 free range eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
113g sultanas
113g raisins
100g candied orange
100g sour cherries (for the large bun)
Glaze
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon milk
Icing
200g icing sugar
Juice of half a lemon
The ingredients (except for the cherries) are for both the little buns and the big one. Divide the mixture in half after proving and before shaping.
Method
Here is the method, adapted from the rather scant instructions given by Margaret Stout.
For the sponge, sieve the flour into a large bowl, then add the yeast and sugar. Gradually add the lukewarm milk, stirring to make a smooth batter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel or a disposable plastic shower cap. Leave to rise in a warm place for an hour.
Prepare the rest of the mixture. Put the flour, caster sugar and butter into the bowl of a KitchenAid fitted with a dough hook and mix until thoroughly combined. Add the sponge mixture, beaten eggs, vanilla extract, almond essence, cinnamon and allspice. Mix well, for for at least 5 minutes until the dough is elastic and passes the window pane test.
Cover the mixture in the bowl with plastic wrap/tea towel/plastic shower cap and leave to rise again for 1 ½ hours.
Remove the risen dough and stretch into a large rectangle. Scatter the sultanas, raisins and candied orange, a small amount at a time, over the dough, folding the dough over after each addition. You want to incorporate the fruit as evenly as you can into the dough.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C fan forced.
Now divide the dough into two.
Take one half of the dough and divide into 12 pieces. Shape each into a ball and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Cover the tray loosely with a tea towel or large plastic bag and prove for 30 minutes in a warm place.
Take the other half of the dough, and stretch into a large rectangle. Scatter the sour cherries a small amount at a time, over the dough, folding the dough over after each addition.
Shape the dough into a large ball and place in a panettone case or large cake tin. Cover with a tea towel or plastic bag and prove for an hour in a warm place.
When the small buns have proved, put them into the preheated oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the buns are a deep brown colour.
Remove the buns from the oven, and while warm, brush the tops of the buns with a tablespoon of sugar mixed with a tablespoon of milk.
When the large bun has finished proving, put it in the oven and bake for 20 -25 minutes or until a deep brown colour.
Remove the large bun from the oven and leave to cool.
For the icing, mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice to make a thick lemon paste. You may need to adjust either ingredient to get the right consistency.
If you think the buns need zhushing, you could drizzle a little of the icing for the big bun over the tops. I made this icing a little more “drippy” by adding in more lemon juice. However I iced some and also left some plain.
Both the small buns and the large bun keep well as they are enriched with milk, butter and eggs. They are quite soft, and they remain soft even after a couple of days.
You could eat either bun as is or butter liberally – I even toasted the small buns the next day and ate with lashings of butter!
The Quirk and the Cool 