Bun day again

It being just about Easter, and just about a year since the last attempt at hot cross buns, clearly time to have another go, in preparation for the Easter weekend.

Much the same procedure as detailed at reference 1, but without starting the yeast and with a bit more care about adding the milk - which made handling much easier. A little more than six hours from scales to table.

Start of second rise

Went for two buns on this occasion, rather than the one of last time or the twelve in the recipe. Cooked at 180C rather than 200C, but the result was still quite brown.

Fresh out of oven

Let them cool for about half an hour, then tucked into the first. Not bad, but the crumb was firm rather than loose and fluffy and it was very brown, a brown which must have developed with cooking and which, we thought, must have derived from either or both of the cinnamon and allspice used for flavouring. While the pictures accompanying the rather complicated Mary Berry recipe suggest the sort of crumb I was looking for. BH says the next step is to use her recipe but I am not convinced.

But maybe I will up the yeast from a teaspoon and a half for a pound of flour to the four teaspoons suggested - a lot more, relatively speaking, than I use for bread but maybe buns need more. It was also suggested that I should start the use, something I have not found helpful with bread and something which did not seem to be helpful with last year's buns.

The next day

Took half the second bun (with butter) for breakfast this morning, it having been stored overnight in our Tupperware cake holder, in lieu of my usual bread and cheese. Not as good as it had been the evening before, but still entirely eatable. I don't suppose that it will see the day out.

Maybe also I will go for a slightly damper dough; somewhere between this time and the time before.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/bun-day.html.