Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns

Hot cross buns

One ha’ penny

Two ha’penny

Hot cross buns

If you have no daughters

give it to your sons

One ha’penny

Two ha’ penny

Hot cross buns

I remember the song from when I was a child and mum would sing it to my sister and I when we had hot cross buns at Easter.  Thing is, now adays you can find hot cross buns in the shops all year round but I still stick to eating them at Easter.  The apple and cinnamon ones from M&S being my favourite.

I had never made hot cross buns until the other week (I was a week ahead with my pick for Martha Mondays as I knew that the week was going to be incredibly busy).  I chose this recipe and watched the video of Martha and Seth Myers making them.  I love that Martha corrects Seth and makes him not joke about the reason for the cross on the buns and that she gives some history about the buns (which I did not know) when they are being made.

Anyway, back to the buns.  These were easy to make but took a fair while to make.

Looking back now, I should have rolled these into better rounds…

…but it didn’t matter because they tasted great!

Oh!  I stuck completely to the recipe except I couldn’t find golden raisins and so used sultanas instead.  Oh!  And the icing quantity I think it wrong, it was too runny.  I ended up adding nearly another cup of sugar to the mixture so that I could pipe it.

~ Pru

Are you following me on Twitter or Pinterest?  If not, then click on the links.  It would make my day, possibly my week too!

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Polenta, Lemon & Thyme Quick Bread

Until last year I had no idea what Quick Breads were, but a Martha Mondays challenge meant that I made a wonderful quick bread involving pistachios.  I turned to Martha again for the Daring Bakers challenge this month.  A Polenta Quick Bread with Lemon and Thyme.  It spoke to me as soon as I saw it.  ‘Make me, make me’ it said.  And make it I did!

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own.  She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

As far as I can tell, quick bread is really, cake.  Like pound cake.  I didn’t really care for this recipe, it was a bit too sweet with the lemon and reminded me more of a lemon cake – which had gone wrong.

And now I have a box of polenta in the cupboard which is saying ‘use me, use me’ and use it I shall.  Recipes to follow soon.

~ Pru

Are you following me on Twitter or Pinterest?  If not, then click on the links.  It would make my day, possibly my week too!

Blackberry Almond Shortbread Squares

It was my pick for Martha Mondays this week and I thought I would consult with my parents as to what they fancied instead of me just picking something. ‘Anything with beans or berries’ was the answer. Yes, the Singer family is elbow deep in green beans, runner beans and blackberries along with cucumbers and beetroots and chard.

So, that is the story of how we came to make this dessert. It was easy to make and didn’t require four trillion ingredients and if you were really clever (like I am) you only needed one bowl. I used ground almonds and they worked fine instead of baking and then blitzing almonds. I never bake and then blitz anything that I can find already prepared.

The verdict? Everyone likes this. I have in fact made it twice now as the first batch was eaten before I could photograph it. This is extremely crumbly and the fruit maintains it texture. It’s a winner.

(Please note, that I haven’t actually eaten it as I don’t like berries (except strawberries) but everyone tells me that it is really good). I can’t wait to see what everyone else thought.

Like the idea of joining Martha Mondays? Click over to Brette’s blog for more details.

~ Pru

Fraisier

I was quick off the mark this month. I had made and we had devoured the Fraisier within the first week of the challenge coming out. We loved it. I dream about it. It was wonderful. I love Fraisiers but would never have thought to make one as it seemed rather intimidating. In fact, it wasn’t. I’m already planning to make smaller individual cakes.

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes (which is now one of my favourite food blogs) was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

Here are the photo steps to making the cake.

This was a great pick. I macerated the strawberries in raspberry coulis and Chambord and they were lovely and soft. The sponge was also spoon-fed the same mixture. Next time I am going to drench the sponge more!

~ Pru