In February, Brent and I spent a few weeks in Queensland, on the Sunshine Coast. It was warm and lovely and hardly rained at all while we were there! We kissed seals, drank lots of beer, hung out at the Surf Life Saving Club, and read so many good books.
Now that the weather in Hobart is freezing, gets dark at 4.00pm and seems to rain everyday, I thought I'd share some photos from our trip, to make us all long for warmer times.
~This seemed like the obvious song to put with this post, but I couldn't bring myself to be that obvious, so I've gone completely in the other direction and included something entirely unrelated ~
Every Good Friday morning, my dad gets up and makes bread. Not just any old bread, though. Hot cross buns. Made from a special recipe that comes from a really old book that is falling apart at the seams. He's had to change and adapt this recipe over the years: change the measurements into metric, rather than gils and pints, change the yeast content from fresh to (more convenient) dried.
He's been making this recipe for as long as I can remember. I haven't attempted to make this myself yet, because it's Good Friday and nothing is open and I forgot to buy the ingredients yesterday.
But you can trust me that this recipe is good. It must be good if Dad has been making it for so long.
I'm going to try and make these on Sunday, even though that's not really the right day to be making them. And I'll post some pictures so you can see how great the buns really are. But for now, here's a picture of me and my dad together.
My Dad's Hot Cross Buns Recipe.
2x 7g Pack Dried Yeast
1 ½ Cups (400 ml) warm milk ( temperature of your finger )
2 tbs caster Sugar
50g Butter
500g white Bread Flour
1/3 Cup (50 g) Mixed Peel
2/3 Cup (100 g) Currants
1tsp Mixed Spice
½ cup warm Milk, 1 egg and tsp. caster sugar, mixed
PASTRY crosses
75 g plain Flour
2 tsps Caster Sugar
30 g Butter
Dissolve the yeast and sugar into the milk and let it froth
Rub The butter into Flour, add the currants peel ,spice. Make a well in the flour pour in the warm milk mix. Mix to a smooth dough, it will be sticky so use plenty of flour to work it. Let rise in the bowl covered in plastic wrap for 1 1/2 hours. Turn out onto a board, cut up into 15 portions. Roll them into balls, aiming for a good smooth skin on the top side of each bun. Place on baking tray leaving enough room for the buns to double in size. Leave for 45 mins – 1 hour to rise.
Preheat the oven to 200*C
Make the pastry Crosses by combining flour and sugar, then rubbing in butter. Mix in a few tsps. of cold water to make a firmish dough. Roll out thin and cut into skinny strips.
Brush the tops of the buns with a little water and cross the strips on top.
This step can be omitted and just a cut made in the top of the buns.
Cook about 15 -20 mins till brown. Just before they’re done brush all with the milk egg sugar mix (cook 1 or 2 more minutes)
