Let’s face it: Easter just isn’t Easter without hot cross buns.

And chocolate.

But mostly hot cross buns.

If you’re feeling a bit daunted by the whole prospect of making your own, don’t be. Let Auntie English Mum guide you through the whole process.  Think of me as a little friend hovering at your shoulder in the kitchen.  Actually don’t.  That’s a bit creepy.

Anyhoo, it’s really easy (with a bit of waiting around), and the gorgeous scent of these spicy orangey wonders fills the whole house.  So let’s get cracking.

You’ll need:

150ml milk

150ml water

Zest of 1 orange

50g butter

450g strong white bread  flour

1 tbsp mixed spice

1 tsp salt

75g sugar

1 x 7g sachet dried yeast

100g sultanas (or mixed peel if you must – bleurgh)

For the cross:

2 tbsp flour

1 tsp caster sugar

For the glaze:

1 tbsp orange marmalade, rindless or sieved

Step one:

Before you start, assemble and weigh out your ingredients.  This will save you time and prevent any flapping half way through the recipe.

So in a small saucepan (or jug if you’re doing it in the microwave) warm the milk, water, orange zest (use the finest grater you have) and butter until the butter is just melted, then turn off the heat.  Let it cool so that when you stick your finger in, it feels like blood temperature.

Step two:

While the liquid is cooling, sieve the flour and ground mixed spice together into a large bowl.  Next, stir in the salt, sugar, dried yeast and sultanas (have a quick pick over to make sure there are no stalks left).

Step three:

If you’ve got a mixer,  pop in all the dry ingredients, then set it on low and slowly pour in the milky mixture until the dough comes together (you might not need all of it so go steady), then plug in the dough hook and set it to knead for a good five minutes.

If you’re old-fashionedy or are still waiting to meet the mixer of your dreams (they do actually come out nicer and lighter if you knead them by hand), you’ll have to get to it for at least ten minutes.  Yes, I know, sorry, but it’s true.  Knead away, holding the dough lightly with one hand while you stretch it away from you with the other, before bringing it together and repeating the process.  The sultanas keep trying to escape, but grab any of the little blighters trying to make a quick getaway and poke them back in. Keep going until the dough is nice and springy and firm (think the texture of a boob, or possibly a bottom cheek – poke your finger in – if the dough springs back, then it’s done – if not, knead a bit more).  Disclaimer: possibly best if you don’t actually do this with people’s boobs.

Step four:

When your dough is sufficiently springy, leave it covered with a clean tea towel in a warm place until it’s doubled in size.   Then, just knock it back with your fist and cut it in half, then half again and half again.  Form each of your 8 pieces into a ball and place them on a floured baking tray.  Cover and rise again until they’re puffed up.

Step five:

If you want to add the cross, then mix about 2 tbsp flour, a tsp of caster sugar and enough water to make into a thick paste and either just dribble it with a teaspoon, or pipe it onto your buns (ooer Missus) with a disposable piping bag.  Or, you can cut a cross in the top of the buns and pipe the cross into the little lines.  Totally up to you.

Step six:

Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 180/gas 6 until they sound hollow when patted on the bottom.  Finally, when they’re just out of the oven,  warm up the marmalade with a splash of water and brush it on for extra glossy stickiness (use rindless here – you don’t want bits of peel sticking to your buns). If you’re going to freeze them, slice them in half first so they can go straight in the toaster.

And that’s it.  Congratulations, you are a master bun maker.  Go you!

So the weekend was somewhat traumatic.  I won’t fill you in on all the events, but needless to say being trapped in a packed train carriage all the way from Shepherds Bush while the three teenagers I was escorting serenaded their fellow commuters with loud renditions of My Horse is Amazing (seriously – don’t bother watching it, it’s that bad) and then being politely told that we were, in fact, accidentally in the first class carriage, shall remain with me for a long time and was one of the lesser traumatising events of the weekend.  Read out of that what you will.

Anyhoo.  In other news, I’m still on the lookout for a lovely breakfasty-type recipe that’s also quite healthy (I know, I know… giving up alcohol and vowing to eat healthily for the whole of January was a BIG HUGE MISTAKE – I have learned both that I could never be teetotal, and that I can’t live without cake) still, it’s nearly over now).  Yesterday I came across possibly one of the prettiest blogs I’ve ever seen: Eat Yourself Skinny.  It turns out that not only is the blog pretty, but the writer, Kelly, is ridiculously pretty as well.

So I thought, well.  If I eat what she eats, surely I’ll wake up looking exactly like her.

Right?

Oh.

Anyhoo, on to the trial and error.  I noticed that lovely Kelly’s blueberry and lemon bread was adapted from  Joy of Baking, so I went back to the original recipe to have a look.  Here’s my version.  I had to change it all from cups, and I decided to use rapeseed oil instead of butter (similar calories, just much better for you).  The result was yummy, although the inside of the cake was a bit too stodgy, presumably because beating the butter and sugar together introduces air into the mixture.  So I say stick with butter (the calories are the same).  I will say, though, that cutting it into the recommended 12 portions proved to be too much of a challenge.  Still, if you do manage it, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s just 159 calories a slice (might be better to cut it into 6 slices, then cut each in half). I also used a sugar substitute to keep the calories down (I know, I know, but honestly you can’t taste the difference).  Lastly, I used a whole punnet of blueberries which is a bit too much.  Stick to 150g.

You will need:

80g butter

6 tbsp granulated sugar substitute (try the new Truvia one – I haven’t been able to get hold of it yet)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

225g self raising flour

125ml milk

So preheat the oven to 180/gas 4 and spray a loaf tin with cake release (or butter it very lightly).

Beat the butter in a mixer (or by hand if you’re feeling butch), then add the sugar and beat until the mixture’s really light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, beating between each addition, and then the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

Stir in the flour and then the milk.  Finally, stir in the blueberries

Pop the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for about 50 minutes.  Pop a knife tip into the centre to check that it’s done, otherwise leave for a bit longer.

Allow it to cool before slicing into your minute portions.  It really is surprisingly lush though – and the blueberries make it quite jammy and sticky too.  Top tip: freeze your slices (with a piece of greaseproof paper between each one). Then they’re easy to pop into the toaster for a quick and healthy breakfast.

When I was in Dubai, I loved that they used Hibiscus in cooking, and in tea.  It has a flavour – and colour – similar to cranberry – fruity but tart – so when I saw some in the Bastakiya market I nabbed some, feeling that it would be excellent around Christmas time.  Here’s my first Christmassy experiment.  I think it works really well.

450g strong white bread flour

1 tsp salt

75g sugar

1 x 7g sachet dried yeast

150ml milk

150ml water

50g butter

Zest of one lemon

For the icing:

2 tbsp dried hibiscus flowers

4 or 5 tbsp icing sugar

So for the soft iced buns:

Sieve the flour into a large bowl, then stir in the salt, sugar, and dried yeast.  In a small saucepan, warm the milk, butter and lemon zest over a low heat until the butter has just melted, then turn off the heat.  The liquid should be at no more than blood temperature when it’s added to the dry ingredients.

Pour most of the milky mixture into the dry ingredients and stir it around with a knife until you get a light dough.  Leave it as sticky as you can bear as this will make the end result really soft.  You can always add a bit of flour.  Now start kneading: with the heel of one hand, press and splurge the dough away from you, (imagine you’re smearing it across the work surface) then bring it back, squish it into a ball again, turn it over and then splurge it again.  As it’s quite a wet dough this is a bit messy, but that all adds to the fun.  Again, if you’re getting really covered, you can always add a bit of extra flour.  As you knead it, it will become more elastic and springy and less squelchy.

When you’ve kneaded for about 5 minutes and your dough is springy and soft (you know I’m going to do the bottom cheek analogy now, don’t you – I can’t help it) and akin to a plump baby’s bottom, cover it with clingfilm and leave it in the airing cupboard or somewhere else warm until it’s doubled in size.  Then, just knock it back with your fist and form it into 8 balls.  Either place them on a baking tray or arrange them inside a springform cake tin like I did, then cover and rise again until they’re puffed up.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 180/gas 4 until they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom (God, I’ve got some kind of bottom obsession. Sorry).

While they’re baking, you can make the icing.  Take a couple of tablespoons of the dried hibiscus and just cover with boiling water.  Leave to infuse.  If you’re not using the hibiscus, just use cranberry juice, or even just lemon juice.  Remember to add the liquid to the icing sugar and not the other way round.  Dribble by dribble, keep adding liquid until the icing is thick and viscous.  Too runny and it will all disappear down the sides of the buns, and too thick and it won’t dribble in a satisfactory, dribbly manner.

As soon as they’re out of the oven…

… drizzle the icing all over them so it runs down the sides…

For an added Middle Eastern touch, you could sprinkle them with crushed pistachio nuts, or for added Christmassyness some good old edible glitter, or even chopped, dried cranberries.  Or all of it,  if you’re feeling all daredevilly (wait, is that a word?).

As always, make these your own by adding maybe some Christmas spices, sultanas or substituting the lemon for orange.

So I’ve been reading up on our new abode (I know I should think of some funky new name, but I also know it will continue to be English Towers – why fight it?).  The village was listed in the Domesday Book (thank you Wikipedia), and the hill overlooking the village is not only a site of special scientific interest, but crossed by the Ridgeway as well.  There’s also a very old windmill here, and it’s suitably mental as it has a Bedfordshire postal address, even though it’s actually in Buckinghamshire.  Perfect.

So that’s geography and stuff out the way – what else is there?  Well, very near there are beautiful fields with snaking chalk paths through lovely woodland:

… and lots and lots of rosehips and crab apples (I’m thinking jelly – once I’ve got to the bottom of my Dispreputable Dad’s cooking apple mountain – another mahoosive bag appeared yesterday):

Anyhoo, with most of the unpacking done (it still looks like an explosion has occurred, but we’ve ordered chests of drawers, so it’s Not Our Fault, okay?), and a spectacular cackling and chocolate biscuit session with the gorgeous Glamorous C (she walked – WALKED! – from her house up to here.  I was duly impressed), it was time to hit the kitchen…

One of English Dad’s students has his own bees and brings him pots of the most amazing Buckinghamshire honey known to man – it’s fragrant and delicious, and was used accidentally as I was making my usual soda bread but realised at the last minute I didn’t have any black treacle.  I’ll never use black treacle again now as this honey makes a spectacular loaf:

100g white bread flour

450g wholemeal flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tsp salt

400ml buttermilk (or just add the juice of  1/2 lemon to whole milk and allow to sit for a while)

1 egg

2 tbsp oil (I use the amazing local rapeseed oil)

2 tbsp honey

So preheat your newly clean, sparkly oven to 200 degrees/gas 6 and oil a loaf tin (do it well, or better still, line it with bake-o-glide, it sticks like a biatch this stuff).

Sieve the white flour and bicarb (make sure you sift the bicarb well – otherwise it will manifest itself in the finished bread as little green dots – not pleasant) then add the wholemeal flour and the salt.

Measure out the buttermilk (or lemony milk) then add in the egg, oil and honey.  Whisk well.

Add to the dry ingredients and stir until combined.  Flop the mixture straight into the loaf tin and straight into the oven.  This is lazy person’s bread – no rising or kneading here.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until the bottom is hollow when you tap it (ooer missus).  I take it out of the loaf tin around 45 minutes just to make sure the bottom is baked and gets a crust too.

This recipe is gorgeous with added nuts and seeds, but won’t keep, so if you’re not going to scoff it straight away, slice and freeze it for instant yummy breakfast toast.

Thank you Buckinghamshire bees!  I can see I’m going to be very happy here.

When we were in the incredible Dubai Mall, searching for a place to sit down and have a quick coffee, we stumbled upon a cinnamon bun shop.  The place makes amazing cinnamon buns, very similar to our Chelsea buns, but much more gooey.  I didn’t actually eat one – not like me, but we were about to go on a rollercoaster – but the others were raving, and when I told my American chums on Twitter, they all swooned at the mere mention of the name.

When I got home, I was telling de brevren all about the heavenly smell emanating from these little swirls of delight.  ’Ooh, make them, Mum!’ came the inevitable cry, ‘you have to make them for us!’.  And being in that Saturday afternoon mood for a bit of lazy fiddling about in the kitchen, I set about making an attempt at recreating them (recipe at the bottom).

The Tesco Real Food Challenge

In a happy coincidence, the lovely chaps at Tesco are running a competition in the UK and Ireland to find the best recipes that we all have to suit our moods – whether it be a perfect recipe for breakfast on the go, or the ultimate heartbreak healer (I love that category – it’s got to be chocolate, right?).

I thought I might enter this recipe in the ‘family favourite’ category.   The best recipes are going to be tested by a panel (including my lovely friend Alice from DD’s Diary) and the most exciting news is that the initial competition winners will get to be on the tellybox!  This Autumn, there’ll be a 7 week TV series on Channel 5 and Good Food involving lots of celebs (including de brevren’s techy crush, the gorgeous Suzi Perry), where the lucky few will compete to be crowned Britain’s Best Real Food Cook.

If you fancy entering the competition, check out  www.tescorealfoodchallenge.com.  Every entry is in with a chance to win some great weekly prizes including cameras, a Ragdale Hall health spa break and a residential cookery course with Rosemary Shrager (want!).

So what are you waiting for?  Get entering!  Here’s my entry:

Cinnamon Buns

450g strong white bread flour

1 tsp salt

75g sugar

1 x 7g sachet dried yeast

150ml milk

150ml water

50g butter

For the filling:

170g brown sugar

75g butter, softened

Pinch salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp good quality cocoa powder

So for the dough, I just used the same recipe as I use for my squishy iced buns.  Basically just sieve the flour into a large bowl, then stir in the salt, sugar, and dried yeast.  In a small saucepan, warm the milk, water, and butter over a low heat until the butter has just melted, then turn off the heat.  The liquid should be at no more than blood temperature when it’s added to the dry ingredients.  You can do this in the microwave, but remove it as soon as the butter starts to melt and stir gently until it’s all combined, otherwise you’ll be waiting for ages for it to be cool enough.

Pour most of the milky mixture into the dry ingredients and stir it around with a knife until you get a light dough.  Leave it as sticky as you can bear as this will make your dough really plumptiously, pillow-soft.  You can always add a bit of flour.  Now start kneading.  If you need any help, check out my ‘how to knead’ guide.

When you’ve kneaded for about 5 minutes and your dough is springy, soft and – brace yourself, you know I’m going to say it – looks exactly like a nice, round bottom-cheek, cover it with clingfilm and leave it in the airing cupboard or somewhere else warm until it’s doubled in size.

While your dough is proving, make your filling by creaming together all the ingredients.  Put it aside, covered, but not in the fridge.

When the dough is risen, just knock it back with your fist and roll it out into a large rectangle.  Spread over the filling, then roll it up into a long sausage.  Cut into inch/inch and a half slices, and place them flat on a buttered baking tray.  Cover them again for about half an hour until they’re really plump and lovely, then just bake them at gas 5/190 degrees C until golden brown.  They’ll only take about 15/20 minutes.

If you want, you can add a topping (I reckon it’s probably similar to the cream cheese icing that you add to carrot cake).  Fankly, I feel that the buns are already a little heart-attack in the making – but hey, feel free.

If I win, I shall wave regally at you through the telly.  If you win, I shall be throwing rotten veg at the screen.  Just saying.

Happy Paddy’s Day!

I’m off home to see the folks for a few days, but seeing as it’s Paddy’s I thought I’d tempt you with a nice, easy and traditional recipe to celebrate.

The lovely Spudness from The Daily Spud runs a fantastic Paddy’s Day Food Parade, so pop over to Spud Towers to check out all the other recipes.

This is an adaptation of one of Rachel Allen’s recipes, but as usual I’ve had a little fiddle. I know.  I can’t help myself.  Soda bread is still the staple for many an Irish household, and this recipe is a great basis for all sorts of additions.  You can add seeds, nuts, dried fruit (use only 1 tsp salt if you make it sweet), even chocolate chips.

It doesn’t keep well, being yeast-free, but if you slice it and freeze it, you can toast it straight from frozen (if it lasts that long).  If you’ve never made your own bread this is a great place to start, as there’s no rising or kneading.  And the mud pie element of this makes it perfect to cook with children too!

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

100g white bread flour

450g wholemeal flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp salt

400ml buttermilk (or mix whole milk with the juice of 1/2 lemon)

1 egg

2 tbsp oil

1 tbsp treacle

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas 6 and oil a loaf tin. Now put the flour in a bowl and sieve in the bicarb (omit this step at your peril – nasty green lumps don’t give this a St Patrick’s day feel – they just look gross). Add the salt and stir it all together.

Now, measure out the milk and squeeze in the lemon, or just use buttermilk. Add in the egg, oil and – while you have a nice oily spoon – the treacle. Whisk this lot together until it forms a completely revolting-looking brown gooey liquid (persevere, the treacle takes time to mix in). Now, just slosh the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix into a big wet mud pie.

Flop your muddy mixture into a buttered loaf tin, then pop it into the preheated oven and sit back while your entire kitchen fills with the gorgeous aroma of baking bread. As usual, make sure the loaf is done by tapping its bottom (ooer) and making sure it sounds hollow, otherwise give it a bit longer.  You might need to cover the top if it’s getting too brown.

Serve warm with lashings of Irish butter and a big blob of home made jam.  Or, you can add a slice to the pan after you’ve been cooking the bacon and scoff it, dipped in runny egg of course, with your big durty fry-up.  Mmmmmmm.

And finally, I’ll share with you the beautiful Irish blessing that my lovely friend Jen sent me today:

May luck be our companion

May friends stand by our side

May history remind us all

Of Ireland’s faith and pride

May God bless us with happiness

May love and faith abide.

Anon.

So thank you to all the intrepid bakers who entered the Fresh Break Bakeoff.  There are some really great entries here – from complete novices to some very accomplished bakers!  Have a look at all the great entries and I’ll be letting you know the winner of all the Marriage’s goodies very soon!

So recently I showed you my simple recipe for  easy step by step bread.  I had a lot of comments from people saying they’d quite like to have a go – so now’s your chance!  The newest, shiniest bakeoff is here – and it’s all about fresh bread!  What do you fancy baking?  A nice crusty loaf?  Some shiny conker-brown bagels?  Sticky buns?

The Rules

As usual, we laugh in the face of rules.  As long as you actually bake something bready, take a picture and send it to me (with a link if you have a website), you’re in.

Photos need to be emailed to me at: english [dot] towers [at] gmail [dot] com, with a brief note saying what your bakey masterpiece is and how you’d like to be credited.

Entries must be received by midnight on Feb 14th, St Valentine’s Day.

Cheating

As usual, a bit of healthy rule-breaking is to be embraced and any creative wavering from the theme will be acceptable.  As long as there’s a suitably waffly and entertaining reason why, I’ll let you off.

The Techy Stuff

If you’re a blogger, please link back to this post, and if you’re a tweeter, please use the hashtag #freshbreadbakeoff. If you’re neither, then just ignore this bit completely.

The Prize

The lovely chaps at Marriage’s Millers (www.flour.co.uk) have very kindly offered to provide a prize of a range of their fabulous quality flours, plus some scrapers, so you can bake bread like a pro!  The entries will be displayed in one enormous blog post (this bit causes a total hysterical meltdown in my non-technical brain, but don’t worry, I’ll get over it).

The Judge

The fabulous Hannah Marriage knows absolutely everything there is to know about flour, bread and baking and has foolishly agreed to be the judge.  All bribes and dodgy approaches to be made directly and not via this blog.  The judge’s decision is final.

So that’s it, then.  You’ve got loads of time, plenty of inspiration, and some very ambiguous rules.  Let’s get baking bread!

There is nothing, I think, quite as delicious as the smell of bread baking.  I know there are times in the kitchen when you want to rush in, whip up something quick, and rush out again, but there are other times when a quiet potter is just fabulous.  For those times, breadmaking is ideal.  I love kneading bread – there’s something quite hypnotic and soothing about it – and producing a home-made loaf is possibly one of the most satisfying things you can do.

As you know, I’m a bit of a rapeseed oil nut, and it’s perfect for this recipe, being both very healthy and pleasantly nutty in flavour, but you can use olive oil or melted butter. Just make sure it weighs 50g.

450g strong white bread flour

2tsp salt (remember a tsp is flat though, don’t overdo it)

1 sachet (7g) yeast

50g rapeseed oil

300ml warm water

So first, sift the flour and salt, then stir in the yeast.  Measure out the oil, pour that in, then use the same jug to measure the warm water (it’ll pick up some of the oil that was left in the jug) and pour that in.

Stir it around with a wooden spoon, then when it’s roughly together, flump it out onto your work surface.

The science bit:

Think of gluten as the spongy network that holds all the bubbles (of carbon dioxide, but hey, that’s me being picky) produced by the yeast in place.  This is the most important bit of bread making. You want the gluten to form nice strong chains – under-kneaded bread will be tough, so don’t skimp.

Kneading technique:

Everyone’s got their own techniques, but all you’re aiming to do is stretch and develop the gluten and aerate the dough (as well as making sure that all your ingredients are thoroughly mixed).  Most forms of squishing, folding and stretching will do the trick.

First things first: don’t worry if your dough is sticky – you want your dough to be sticky.  Your fingers will get covered in dough – don’t worry!  The stickier your dough,the softer and more plumptious your bread.

Start off roughly squeezing it together and then start pushing it away from you with the heel of one hand (you have to use your imagination a bit here, because obviously my other hand was holding the camera).  Really smoosh the dough across the work surface:

… then bring it in, folding it over, and squish it together:

…then push it away from you again.  Carry on doing that until your dough is soft, stretchy and plump – about ten minutes should do it – and bounces back when you stick your finger into it (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but yes, it should be the texture of a nice soft bum cheek).

Rising:

Flour the bowl and pop your ball of dough into it.  Loosely cover with clingfilm and pop into your airing cupboard alongside the pillows and enormously fat, bad tempered cat (hence the clingfilm).  Leave it for a good hour or until it’s doubled in size.

Knocking back:

Fetch your dough, avoiding your unpleasant feline, pull it away from the edges and give it a couple of thumps with your fist to knock it back.

Additions:

This is the time to add stuff in if you’re being fancy: olives, sundried tomatoes, seeds… whatever you like.  As a rough estimate, I’d keep the ingredients to under 150g.

Shaping:

Plop it once more onto a floured surface. This time, you’re thinking finished product, so give it a quick squish and start forming it into whatever shape you like.  Being blessed with the decorative talent of an amoeba, I usually go for something plain – a rough, ball shape with a slit down the middle, but hey, if you want to plait, don’t let me stop you.

Second rise:

Flour a baking tray and place the dough on it, loosely covering it again and then it’s back to the airing cupboard or sunny windowsill for its final rise.  It probably won’t take another hour, but just wait until it’s nice and puffed up.

Baking:

Preheat the oven to 200/gas 6 and bake for about 20 – 30 minutes.  Obviously a ball shape is going to take longer to cook than a flatter shape.  When it’s done it will be browned, and will sound hollow when you tap its bottom (ooer).

This is quite a soft, farmhouse loaf, but it’s got a lovely texture.  Obviously it won’t keep as well as plastic bread, so it’s best to scoff it warm from the oven.

PS: If you’re a first-time bread maker, make sure you take a picture of your efforts – great competition coming up very soon!

You might also like:

Browse bread recipes

I have absolutely no idea why we calls these ‘milk rolls’.  Well, apart from the fact that they obviously contain milk, but then so do an awful lot of other bread recipes.

Anyhoo, whatever their name they’re a firm favourite here.  Their soft texture makes them ideal for breakfast, toasted with a little of our favourite Whole Earth peanut butter and a dollop of bramble jelly.  The boys also like them in their lunchboxes, stuffed with crunchy lettuce, poached chicken and zesty lemon mayo (they ignore the bits of knuckle along with the lemon zest – it’s okay, I’m gradually blunting the grater with my digits).

Anyhoo, enough of my bloody stumps and onto the bread.  You’ll need:

450g strong white bread flour

2 tsp salt

1 x 7g sachet dried yeast

150ml milk

150ml water

50g butter

So first, sieve the flour into a large bowl (or your food mixer bowl), then stir in the salt and dried yeast.

In a small saucepan, warm the milk, water and butter over a low heat until the butter has just melted, then turn off the heat.  The liquid should be at blood temperature when it’s added to the dry ingredients (which means you can stick your finger in without it feeling too warm).  You can do this in the microwave, but remove it as soon as the butter starts to melt and stir gently until it’s all combined, otherwise you’ll be waiting for ages for it to be cool enough.

Making the dough:

Pour most of the milky mixture into the dry ingredients and stir it around with a knife until you get a light dough.  Leave it as sticky as you can bear as you want your dough to be lovely and soft.  You can always add a bit of flour if you really want to, but seriously, the stickier you can manage, the better.

If you have a tiny bit of liquid left over, that’s fine – you can brush it over the rolls before they go in the oven.

Now start kneading.  If you’re using a food mixer, just bung it in for about five minutes and forget about it (great if you’re busy and need to crack on), but by hand is lovely and satisfying too – if I’ve got extra time I often do.

To hand knead:

With the heel of one hand, press and splurge the dough away from you, (imagine you’re smearing it across the work surface) then bring it back, squish it into a ball again, turn it over and then splurge it again.  As it’s quite a wet dough this is a bit messy, but that all adds to the fun.  Again, if you’re getting really messy, you can always add a bit of extra flour.  As you knead it, it will become more elastic and springy and less squelchy.

Double Proving and shaping:

So when you’ve kneaded for about 7-10 minutes and your dough is springy and pillowy-soft (I know I’ve said this before, but a lovely dough ready for proving looks like a nice, round bottom-cheek), cover it with clingfilm and leave it in the airing cupboard or somewhere else warm until it’s doubled in size.

Then, just knock it back with your fist (imagine punching someone you can’t stand – always does the trick for me) and form it into 8 balls.  Either place them on a baking tray or arrange them inside a springform cake tin like I did, then cover and rise again until they’re puffed up.

You can also just fashion the dough into an oval shaped loaf: cut it down the centre and bake it ‘free-form’, you get a nice crust by doing it this way.

Now bake for about 15-20 minutes (for rolls – a whole loaf will take a bit longer) at 180/gas 4 until you hear a hollow knock when you tap the loaf/rolls on the bottom.  You can glaze them if you like with a little leftover milky mixture, or just some plain milk.  I like to dust them with flour.

You can do tons with this dough: squish it flat into a small baking tray, get your fingers in there and squish it, then drizzle with olive oil and maybe dot some olives and rosemary about and you’ve got a bit of a knock-off foccacia.  Add seeds, use wholemeal flour… just experiment (and if you do, send me pics!).

If you want to make sticky buns, my sweet dough recipe is here.

Off to the kitchen with you!