Easter Time in the Kitchen
The easter school holidays are a challenge with older school-going kids, boredom literally lives with us. (que (MASSIVE) eyeroll).
Luckily we found a really fun and culturally important life-skill to add to our arsenal of culinary skills. Grace Stevens offers the best baking classes from the Bosch Experience kitchen in Cape Town (with a view) and we happily spent the morning with Grace baking the most incredibly beautiful hot cross buns. Her recipe is below, so I strongly advise that you lock yourself in the kitchen and try this recipe. ENJOY AND HAVE A HAPPY EASTER.
Hot Cross Bun Recipe
INGREDIENTS
Buns
750 ml white bread flour
1 sachet instant yeast
5 ml salt
80 ml castor sugar
300 ml milk
1 large egg
60 g soft butter
10 ml ground cinnamon
5 ml ground mixed spice
3 ml ground cloves
200 g fruit cake mix
Crosses
250 ml flour
25 ml castor sugar
150 ml water
Glaze
60 ml milk
60 ml castor sugar
METHOD
- Place flour, sugar, salt and butter into a large mixing bowl.
- Add spices and fruit cake mix, combine.
- Pour yeast into milk, add egg and mix well.
- Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture. Mix well and turn out onto a floured work surface.
- Knead until dough is silky. The raisins will go everywhere, this is totally normal.
- Leave in a large glass bowl for 45 minutes to double in size. Cover with a towel or cling film.
- Turn out the dough onto a clean surface and knead for a minute. Divide into 16 equal pieces.
- Roll each piece into a round bread roll and place onto a greased baking sheet, leaving some space in between for the buns to rise.
- Cover with a dish towel and leave to rise for 30 Minutes. Preheat oven to 200°C.
- Mix crosses ingredients and pour sticky mixture into a zip lock bag or a piping bag.
- Snip the corner of the zip lock bag or piping bag and pipe crosses onto the buns.
- Place buns into the oven and reduce the temperature to 180°C. Bake for 25 minutes, until buns are golden on the top and sound hollow when tapped.
- Combine the glaze ingredients and heat in the microwave for 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds to prevent boiling over.
- Brush glaze over the buns and cool on a wire rack.
- Serve with butter, cheese or jam.
To view more of Grace’s recipes or more of her hands-on cooking course on offer, visit www.gracestevens.co.za.