Chelsea Buns

I have done it. Proper Chelsea buns... no cheating... I followed a recipe of the famous Paul Hollywood. It was my first time making "rich sweet dough" and it was a bit of nightmare to begin with, as the dough was really wet and sticky. Perseverance. I kept kneading though the dough seemed to be stuck to my hand forever. However, my hard work paid off as the dough gradually became pleasant to work with. Paul's recipe on BBC Food site said the the butter should be melted in a saucepan with milk. I was a bit confused because he put all the independents (flower, sugar, yeast, salt, egg) together in the bowl, then poured in the warm milk on the BBC show "The master class of GBBO." So I followed his GBBO method and put all the ingredients in the bowl then, poured in the warm milk. I used mixed dried fruit, glace cherries which really needed to be used up, and orange and lemon peel.

Proved and ready to put in the oven

Hurray... just came out of oven.

Ahhhhh. It was worth it. Very soft and beautifully bouncy dough.

Rich and sweet. I'm so happy about the result. :)

 

Oh, by the way,............Look, NO soggy bottom.

My Little Chelsea Buns

I can't ignore leftovers... that's my weakness. There was a half used pack of instant custard powder in a cupboard.... I know it sounds ridiculous, but I used it in these Chelsea Bun looking things. I wanted to make my buns milky and egg flavoured. Well, I thought they would taste like custard. So, as an experiment, I mixed 250g strong white flower, 1tsp easy-action dried yeast, a pinch of salt and 2 tbsp of instant custard powder. Then, I added 175ml warm water and kneaded for 10 minutes. I wasn't sure if it would really work or not, so I used half the quantity of my basic bread recipe. After the first raising, I flattened the dough and spread apricot jam all over. Then I sprinkled some cinnamon and mixed dried fruit. I carefully rolled up the dough as if I was making a Swiss roll. Then, I cut this Swiss roll look dough into pieces about 2cm width.  I placed them on the baking plate, then baked  in a 200c fan oven for 15 minutes. After taking them out I spread some more apricot jam on the top to give the buns extra shine.