Recipe courtesy of Miranda Gore Browne. Follow her on @mirandagorebrowne on Instagram.
Makes 12
Ingredients
- 250g strong white bread flour
- 250g plain white flour
- 2 tbsp of honey
- 1 pear, chopped
- 7g dried yeast
- 30g sugar
- 8g salt
- 125ml milk
- 125ml warm water
- 50g butter, melted
- 1 egg, beaten
- 70g sultanas
- 100g milk chocolate chips
- 1 tsp of mixed spice
- 1 tsp of orange zest
- 1 tsp of lemon zest
For the crosses:
- 100g plain flour
- About 6 tbsp of cold water
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
- Combine the flours, water, milk, yeast, salt and sugar in the mixer bowl and, if you have one, fit the dough hook to mix together the ingredients. If not, use a wooden spoon.
- Add the beaten egg, butter and 1 tablespoon of honey and mix to a sticky dough.
- If using a mixer, use the dough hook and mix on a medium speed for approximately. 8 minutes. Alternatively, knead by hand in the bowl for around 10 minutes (try not to add much flour – oil your hands with some rapeseed oil to stop the dough sticking).
- Put the dough in a large bowl – lightly grease the bowl with a little butter, cover with cling film and leave to rise for a couple of hours or until doubled in size.
- Add the sultanas, chopped pear, lemon and orange zest, chocolate chips, mixed spice and knead to combine into the dough. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for another hour in the bowl.
- Divide into roughly 12 equal pieces and roll into balls, try to tuck under the ends and tuck in as much of the fruit and chocolate chips as possible.
- Line a flat or low-sided baking tray approximately 24cm by 34cm with non-stick baking paper.
- Put the balls of dough in neat rows on the lined baking tray (3 rows of 4 balls).
- Cover the buns on their tray with a clean tea towel and leave to prove in a warm part of the kitchen for a couple of hours.
- Once they have grown a bit (even if they don’t seem to have grown much, they usually grow and rise in the oven as long as they have had a couple of hours resting and proving on the tray).
- Put the flour for the crosses in a small bowl, add the water a little at a time and mix well after each addition, until you have a smooth paste. Spoon it into a piping bag or a food bag and snip off a corner with a pair of scissors. Pipe a line across each row and then across the other way.
- Place in the pre-heated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the buns are golden and sound hollow when you tap them underneath.
- Carefully lift them out of the oven and leave them on their trays. Immediately brush honey on the top of the hot buns to make them shiny.
- Leave to cool on the tray before lifting onto a cooling rack.
- Decorate with edible flowers, serve and enjoy!