Hot Cross Bun Recipe

For buns
250g Strong white flour
250g Plain flour
125ml Milk
125ml Boiling water
5g Quick yeast
50g Castor Sugar
50g Butter
1 egg
100g Dried fruit (eg sultanas and mixed peel)
1tsp mixed spice
10g Salt
Any jam (1tsp) and a little hot water to glaze

For crosses

1 table spoon plain flour
a little cold water

Method
Put flour, salt, yeast and sugar in a bowl
Mix the milk and water and add to bowl and mix well (stiff mixture)
Melt butter gently until soft (not fully liquid - although doesn't matter if it is) and add to bowl with the egg.
Now mix, the mixture will become quite sticky, you can do with food mixer and dough hook or continue by hand until the mixture is smooth and silky.

Cover and leave to raise until doubled in size (perhaps an hour)
Knock back and divide in to 8 (or 10 if you want smaller buns) and shape each bun.
Place on baking sheet and cover (clingfilm perhaps)
Leave to raise until doubled in size (approx 30 mins)

Mix the plain flour for the crosses with a little water so it makes a paste (you can make it stiff and shape the crosses by hand and stick on or make it runnier and pipe on with icing bag or plastic bag with corner cut off)
Preheat oven to 200 C
Once the buns have risen add the crosses and put in oven for 15 to 20 mins

Mix together the jam and hot water and when the buns are cooked glaze top by brushing with the mixture (avoid putting any lumps on).

Eat straight away or later toasted with loads of butter.

Before baking

I couldn't believe how good they look (and taste)!!

Madeliene Recipe

When we were in the huge supermarket down in Sallanches a while ago we bought a tin of marron glace (Crème de Marrons de l'Ardèche) and a little recipe book that went with it. We finally got round to buying a Madeleine tin, some vanilla and some carrots so we could make the Madeleine recipe.

Ingredients
150g Plain flour
125g Softened butter
150g Cane sugar (or soft brown sugar)
2 Eggs
2 tblsp milk
1 tsp baking powder
100g fine grated carrots
2 tblsp creme de marron
Additional creme de marron for the filling (perhaps 50g)
1 tsp vanilla extract
All spice or ground cinnamon
Salt
A Madeleine tin (or perhaps a cup cake tin would work fine too - they just wouldn't be the authentic shape - but don't fill full)

Method
Beat the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until the mixture is fluffy and light in colour
Gently fold in the salt, baking powder and flour
Gently fold in all the other ingredients
Fill each shape in the Madeleine tin nearly to the top
Put a blob on Creme de Marron at the thickest point of each shape
Cover with a little bit more of the mixture (so you will end up with blobs of Creme de Marron embedded in the finished Madeleines)
Cook for 12 minutes at 180 C

Fill each shape and put blobs of Creme de Marron and cover with more mixture

Sprinkle with sugar and serve warm

Scoff them all while hot because they are SOOOO yummy

Feel a bit ashamed because you ate SOOO many...

Cricket club cake

Thanks for this recipe Janet!

Apparently we haven't quite got it right yet because it should be less risen, more solid and more fruity (so we are planning on take two next week with more fruit which could possibly solve both these issues... maybe a but less levure chimique). It is very tasty though and we are planning on taking slices skiing with us.

I find if I put in a full full cup of tea the cake rises a little more because the mixture is runnier. Little bit of experimentation required to find what you like best...

Ingredients

12 oz (340g) (dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, dates, nuts or whatever you fancy)

1 breakfast cup (230ml) cold tea 

1 breakfast cup (190g) sugar

2 breakfast cups (250g) self raising flour (or plain with 1 tsp baking powder)

2 eggs

Spice if you want (eg all spice)

Some salt

Cake tin (we used 500g bread tin)

Method

Soak the fruit in the tea with the sugar overnight

Stir in the flour, spice, salt and eggs

Put in to cake tin

Bake for 1 1/4 hours at 175 C

The cake will keep well wrapped in foil and we are considering putting whisky or brandy in to the next one (or the one after) if we don't eat it too quickly...

Galette recipe

A few days ago we had galette at l'Arret Bougnette in Valorcine, we have been there quite a few times because we love the galettes with an egg on. We decided to see if we could make our own.

Ingredients
For the galettes
200g Buckwheat flour (blé sarricin in France)
1 egg
Approx 400ml water/milk mix

For the filling
Anything you like really but we tried 

1. Ham, cheese and egg 
2. >Saucisson and cheese
3. Nutella and banana
4. Lemon and sugar (better on normal pancakes we thought as the lemon comes out the little holes in the galette and the flavour of the buckwheat is a bit strong and needs something 'meatier' with it)

Method
Mix the flour with the egg and enough of the water/milk mix to make a mixture with a similar consistency to double cream (probably slightly thicker if anything - better to start too thick and add a bit of water if the first one comes out too think and rubbery)
Leave for a few hours before using ideally.

Heat a non stick frying pan and then add a little butter, put in a ladle full of the mixture and swirl quickly to cover the pan. I found that the first one didn't get little holes in it like they should be subsequent ones did.
Flip the galette like you would a pancake (I use a spatula)
Depending on the filling you can add it now or when it is on the plate. If you are doing one with an egg crack it over the galette while still in that pan and spread the white out as much as you can so it cooks quicker.

Golden Syrup Cake

We set out to make a ginger cake, but ran in to difficulties when we couldn't find Black Treacle, dark brown sugar or stem ginger in syrup. On top of which, we managed to buy castor sugar instead of icing sugar (surely sucre poudre sounds like powdered or icing sugar!!). 

We were determined to make a cake anyway and I invented to use what we had (a lot of Golden Syrup).

This recipe is based on a top secret family recipe called '4 to 2 to 2 to 1 cake' which has been passed mother to daughter for generations. Doug insisted we had to go metric though...

Doug says it is the best cake he has been involved in making (although he also claims it is the only one...)

It made a good birthday cake

Original 4 to 2 to 2 to 1 recipe

Ingredients

4oz Self Raising Flour

2oz Butter

2oz White Sugar

1 egg

Some milk if required

Anything else you fancy like sultanas, mixed spice, ground ginger, cherries, chocolate drops, icing etc

Salt

Method

Cream butter and sugar together 

Mix in egg (it goes lumpy) 

Mix in flour (add milk if seems too stiff). 

Put in cake tin or individual cake cases and cook at 175 C until brown on top and a skewer comes out clean

Golden Syrup 'tastic recipe

Ingredients

225g Self raising flour (we actually used plan and added 4 tsp baking powder)

112g Butter

100g Soft Brown Sugar

2 eggs

Some raisins (ginger pieces would be nice too)

4 tsp ground ginger

200g Golden Syrup (or more if you want)

Salt

For icing

Caster sugar

Juice of half a lemon

Juice and zest of half an orange

Method

Melt together syrup, butter and sugar over low heat

Put dry ingredients in a bowl and add eggs then stir in the melted mixture

Put in a cake tin (8x8 inches for flat thin cake or we used a bread tin for 500g loaves, there needs to be some headroom for the cake rising) and bake at 170 until skewer comes out clean (approx 40 - 60 mins depending on dimensions of tin) 

If the cake seems to be getting very browned put some baking foil over the top

Make drizzle or 'icing' by putting lemon and orange juice and zest in to a bowl and adding castor sugar until it is quite thick but by no means solid.

Once the cake is cooled a bit drizzle the icing over and eat warm.

Golden Syrup Recipe

We found this tastes a bit different to 'real' golden syrup - which is made as a by product of refining cane sugar rather than by partially inverting refined sugar. But it is pretty tasty. We are thinking about trying again with brown sugar and using citric acid instead of lemon as there is a slight lemony flavour to this batch, we think because the zest went in there on the slice of lemon.


Ingredients
For caramelised sugar
100g sugar
25 ml water

For the main syrup
500g Sugar
300 ml water
1 slice lemon

Instructions
Put the ingredients for the main syrup in a pan and boil slowly

While it is boiling make the caramelised sugar by putting the sugar and water in to a small pan and heating without stirring until the mixture starts to brown (about 8-10 mins probably), when this happens swirl in the pan slowly so it doesn't burn, continue heating until a dark gold colour is reached (a little bit darker than the finished product is going to be but don't burn).

Add this to the main pan and continue to heat this until the mixture reaches a temperature of 110 degrees (or a little higher if you want the syrup stiffer). Probably about 40 - 60 mins

Put in to glass jars while hot (if it is too runny when it cools just heat for a little longer)

Doug's bread

C'est super n'est pas?

We made beer last week and kept some of the yeast from the bottom of the barrel. We made bread there and then with some of it and fed the rest with flour and water so keep it alive.

Doug made his first loaf of bread with it - it came out awesome!!

The yeast

Ingredients 

500g strong white flour

Warm water

Yeast (about 1/4-1/2 cup of starter depending how fast you want it to rise or 7g dried yeast

1 tsp salt

Instructions

Put flour and salt in a bowl

Add the yeast

Add sufficient water to make a sticky dough

Leave for about an hour

Knead until dough is smooth and springy sprinkling on flour as necessary to stop sticking

Shape the dough by tucking the sides underneath to create ball shape of if using a tin a shape similar to the tin

Place on backing tray or in tin and cover with oiled clingfilm

Cooking

When the dough has risen to twice it's original size back in a hot oven for about 30 mins or until well browned. Turn the oven down a bit if it seems to be browning too fast.

Leave to cool a bit before cutting and eating

Flapjack Recipe

Ingredients
Porridge Oats 250g
Butter (salted) 125g
Golden Syrup 75g
Sugar (soft brown) 75g
Optional - sultanas/raisins/sunflower seeds etc
Salt (only if the butter isn't salted)

Equipment
Baking tray (mine is 8x8 inches)
Scales
Pan

Instructions
Melt the butter and golden syrup in pan and salt if using(don't boil or anything, just heat until melted)
Add the sugar and stir Add sultanas or other options if using
Add oats, you may need a little more or less depending what extras you use, the mixture should be moist and sticky but not runny or dry (sorry not v accurate - try it once and add more or less next time to taste...) 

Cook at 175 C for 25-30 mins (will give chewy Flapjack)

If you want crunchy cook a little hotter (about 190 for a little less long)