I have been doing a lot of yeast baking recently and posted recipes for cinnamon buns and for poppy seed yeast buns, which were very soft and fluffy.
I still had a little mincemeat left over from Christmas and thought why not use some of this. The resulting buns are reminiscent of English Chelsea Buns.
This English fruit mix would be recognised in Poland as bakalie -Balkan mix.
The dough is soft and rather hard to handle. After the first rising the dough is NOT knocked back but just used as it is to make a rectangular shape. Putting the buns into a deep foil lined roasting tin helps to let them rise into shape.
Ingredients
250g strong flour
250g plain flour
Half a tablespoon of dried yeast
50g butter
50g granulated sugar
1 egg
Around 330ml milk
*
Several tablespoons of mincemeat
Method
Line a roasting tin with foil taking it all up the sides.
Warm a little of the milk and add the yeast.
Leave for around 10 minutes.
Mix the flours together.
Rub the butter into the flour – like breadcrumbs.
Add the sugar.
Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture.
Add the beaten egg
Slowly add the milk – you might not need all of it.
Use a knife first to start to bring everything together
Then use your hands and form a soft dough ball.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for at least 5 minutes – even up to 10 minutes.
Place the dough into a bowl, cover (a disposable shower cap is good) and leave to rise until the dough has doubled in size.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board.
DO NOT KNOCK BACK THE DOUGH.
Using you fingers gently flatten and shape the dough into a rectangle.
Cover the dough with the mincemeat.
Roll into a log.
Slice into thick pieces.
Place the pieces into the tin.
Cover and leave to rise.
Pre-heat the oven to GM6 – 200°C
Once all the pieces are touching put in the hot oven.
Bake for around 20 mins – check and maybe cover after 15mins.
Drizzle with icing made with lemon juice and icing sugar or just dust with icing sugar
I recently posted a recipe for cinnamon buns, which were very soft and fluffy.
I thought – Why not use the traditional sweet Polish poppy seed mixture instead ofthe cinnamon mixture? – and so I did.
A mixture of strong and plain flours is used making the dough softer and a little harder to handle. After the first rising the dough is NOT knocked back, just used as it is to make a rectangular shape. Putting the buns into a deep foil lined roasting tin helps to let them rise into shape.
Ingredients – Dough
250g strong flour
250g plain flour
Half a tablespoon of dried yeast
50g butter
50g granulated sugar
1 egg
Around 330ml milk
Method
Line a roasting tin with foil taking it all up the sides.
Warm a little of the milk and add the yeast.
Leave for around 10 minutes.
Mix the flours together.
Rub the butter into the flour – like breadcrumbs.
Add the sugar.
Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture.
Add the beaten egg.
Slowly add the milk – you might not need all of it.
Use a knife first to start to bring everything together
Then use your hands and form a soft dough ball.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for at least 5 minutes – even up to 10 minutes.
Place the dough into a bowl, cover (a disposable shower cap is good) and leave to rise until the dough has doubled in size.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board.
DO NOT KNOCK BACK THE DOUGH.
Using you fingers gently flatten and shape the dough into a rectangle.
Cover the dough with the poppy seed mixture.
Roll into a log.
Slice into thick pieces.
Place the pieces into the tin.
Cover and leave to rise.
Pre-heat the oven to GM6 – 200°C
Once all the pieces are touching put in the hot oven.
Bake for around 20 mins – check and maybe cover after 15mins.
Drizzle some icing made from lemon juice and icing sugar over these or just dust with icing sugar.
Leave to cool in the tin on a cake grid.
Ingredients – Poppy seed mix
180ml of milk (full fat or semi)
Around 100ml of runny honey (extra may be needed)
120g of poppy seeds *
50g of raisins
Strong Earl Grey tea
Grated zest of 1 lemon
*
* You can grind the poppy seeds – I used a little electric grinder.
Method
Make some strong Earl Grey tea.
Put the raisins in a small bowl and cover them with the hot tea and leave till they go cold.
Into a small saucepan put the poppy seeds and the milk.
Bring to the boil then lower the heat.
Simmer gently for around 20 minutes, stirring constantly.
Take care not to let the mixture burn.
Add the honey and continue heating and stirring.
Drain the raisins and add them to the mixture and mix them in.
Keep stirring and try and drive off any liquid left.
Taste for sweetness – you may want to add more honey.
Leave to go completely cold before using.
Add the grated lemon rind.
*
If this is too much filling – you can always freeze some.
A few weeks ago I had lunch in Holmfirth (Last of the summer wine country) in a little café called Scufflers.
I wondered what the name meant – was it to do with fighting or a garden implement?
I have now discovered it is a Yorkshire word from the area around Castleford – and it is a used for a triangular shaped teacake or bread bun. In Poland these would be called bułeczki
I found a recipe and made some.
The enriched dough was super to work with – my shapes were a bit “random” – it would be easier to make round buns. They were delicious and I will certainty be adding this to my list of favourite doughs.
Ingredients
450g strong flour
30g butter
1 teaspoon of granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of dried yeast
1 egg
250ml water
Method
Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture is like breadcrumbs.
Stir in the sugar, salt and dried yeast.
Mix together the egg and water.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture.
Add the egg mixture.
Using a knife at first and then your hands bring this together to make a dough.
Knead the dough for 10 minutes. (There is only one kneading so try and do the full time here).
Put the dough into a bowl and cover with a tea cloth and leave till it has doubled in size.
Dust a tray with flour.
Preheat the oven to GM7 – 220°C.
Press the dough into a rough rectangular shape – cut this into two squares and then divide these diagonally so you have eight triangles.
Place the triangles onto the floured baking tray.
Lightly dust with flour.
Bake for around 15 minutes – until golden brown.
Paragon – hand painted tea-plates – I could not resist the lovely shape and bought them recently.
Amusing Thought
In the café, some of the choices for lunch were sandwiches on baguettes, ciabatta or pannini – but despite its name –there was not a scuffler in sight!
Whilst doing some research on caraway, I found that in 2011, Finland produced over 25% of the worlds caraway.
So I thought why not a recipe from Finland!
This is a based on a recipe for pulla – in Poland they would be calledbułeczki – they are yeast buns and in Finland they are served with coffee.
These buns are originally flavoured with crushed cardamon seeds – I have adapted this for caraway.
In Poland caraway is often added to rye bread but not usually added to wheat flour buns.
Ingredients
500g plain flour
50g butter
80g of granulated sugar
300ml tepid milk
1 teaspoon of dried yeast
1 egg beaten
1 tablespoonful of caraway seeds
1 teaspoon of salt
1 egg white, beaten, for glazing (does not burn as easily as whole egg).
Optional
Crushed sugar cubes.
Method
In a small dish start the yeast off with 2 tablespoons of the milk and 1 tablespoon of the sugar until it is bubbling.
Rub the butter into the flour.
Add the salt, caraway seeds, sugar, yeast mixture, milk and egg.
Mix thouroughly with a wooden spoon.
Cover the dough with clingfilm or a cloth and leave to rise.
I left mine over night in a cool cellar and then followed by a few hours in the morning in a warmer kitchen.
Grease 2 baking sheets.
Take the dough out of the bowl – a special dough scraper is very good for this.
Divide the dough into 12 pieces – a dough cutter is most useful for this and shape each one into a ball using floured hands – do not over work the dough or add flour – keep the mix as soft as possible.
Place the balls on the sheets – leaving room for expansion.
Cover and leave to rise.
Pre-heat the oven to GM 6 – 200°C
Brush the top of each bun with the beaten egg white and sprinkle with the crushed sugar if desired.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden – brown.
Getting ready for morning coffee
Enamelled coffee pot by the Cathrineholm ironworks in Norway – Lotus – from the 1960s,
Coffee cups and saucers by Elizabethan – Carnaby – from the 1970s
The buns are on a hand-decorated cake stand made by Fairmont & Main who were established in Huddersfield in 1994.
The pattern is Carnival and this is a recent birthday present from one of my friends.
Note
As with all yeast buns these will go stale quickly – if I have any left – I cut them in half and pack into bags and freeze them.
On de-frosting I toast them and serve with butter.
First let me start by trying to explain a little bit of linguistic confusion around the use of the word bread.
The Polish for bread is chleb and is used for rye bread and any bread which contains at least some rye flour.
The word bułka means a loaf and bułeczka means a little loaf or roll (bułeczki – is the plural) and these words are used for soft wheat loaves or rolls.
So bułeczki are what in England are called bread rolls or bread buns.
However the word is also used for sweet dough yeast buns or sometimes small cakes in general.
The following instructions are for an enriched dough for bread rolls or buns – that is a dough with added milk, butter and eggs.
I will write write about sweet yeast buns in the future
A few pointers – learnt over the past few weeks
Learn to be patient – you cannot control the timings exactly with yeast, it depends on the temperature of the room and the flour used and other variables.
Do yeast baking on a day you are planning to be in & have other things to do, but ones you can break off from when needed.
Heat the milk so it is at body temperature – use the finger test – too hot and you will kill the yeast – too cold is okay – it will just take longer.
Strong flour gave me the best results.
Have the dough as wet & soft as you can handle – do not be tempted to add more and more flour as you form the dough at the beginning.
Knead the dough as much as possible – it can be quite relaxing once you get going.
Use the amount of salt as and when stated in the recipe, it gives the bread taste and controls the yeast.
An egg glaze often burns too quickly – I have found an egg white or egg white & water glaze gives a better result.
The Polish recipes I have looked at make a rozczyn – a leaven in the form of a batter or starter to begin with – I have liked using this method very much.
The older Polish recipes use fresh yeast. I have used dried yeast and had very good results. (I have not tried using easy bake yeast for this recipe).
Basic Enriched Bread Dough
Ingredients
Leaven
250ml tepid milk
25g fresh yeast or 15g dried yeast(1 tablespoon)
1 tbs sugar
100g strong flour
Dough
400g strong flour
1 egg
1 tsp salt
50g butter or margarine or 2 tbs vegetable oil
Wash
1 egg white or
1egg white & 1 tbs water
Optional
Poppy seeds
Sesame seeds
Method
Mix the yeast and sugar with the warmed milk – if using dried yeast leave for a few minutes to let the yeast start to work.
Put the 100g of flour into a bowl and add the milk and yeast mixture, mix it all in to form a batter.
Cover the bowl with a tea towel or cling-film and leave it to rise.
Put the 400g of flour in a large bowl.
Whisk the egg with the salt.
Add the leaven and the egg mixture to the flour and bring it together by hand to from a ball. You might have to add extra milk to get a soft ball – try not to add more flour.
In a small pan melt the butter and leave it cool
Turn the dough out onto a firm surface and knead until you have a nice smooth ball – one of my books says do this for 30 minutes! – knead it for at least 10 minutes.
Now this is the hardest part!
Flatten out the dough and pour the butter or oil over it.
Then incorporate the butter or oil into the dough and knead it until once again you have a nice smooth ball.
Place the dough into a clean bowl and with a tea towel or cling-film and leave it to double in size.
Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C
Grease a large baking sheet.
Take the dough and on a floured surface roll it out into a rectangle.
The next part is to shape the dough, brush with an egg white wash and sprinkle with seeds as desired and bake for 15 minutes.
Three Traditional Shapes
Bułeczki – Kajzerki – Rogaliki
Bułeczki – Round Buns
This amount of dough will make 12 buns.
Use a sharp knife or a dough cutter to divide the dough.
Stainless Steel Dough Cutter
Divide the dough into 2, then each half divide into 2 again. Then divide each piece into 3 equal pieces so giving you 12 pieces. Roll each piece of dough in your hands to make a smooth round ball. Place these on the greased baking sheet with space between them for them to rise. Cover loosely with a cloth and leave them to rise.
Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C
Make an egg white wash by whisking an egg white in a little bowl or an egg white and 1 tablespoon of water.
Use a pastry brush to brush the tops of the buns.
Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if desired.
Bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown – check a little earlier and move them lower in the oven or lower the temperature if the tops are beginning to burn.
Kajzerki
These are Kaiser rolls and originated in Austria – they are meant to look like a crown for the Kaiser. Cut a cross on the top of the dough using a sharp knife – this expands as the dough rises – or you can make 3 cuts to make a 6 pointed star. However the traditions Kaiser roll does in fact have a 5 point cut at the top.
Make 12 buns as in the instructions above
Cut a cross in the top of each bun – cover them with a cloth and leave them to rise.
Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C
Make an egg white wash by whisking an egg white in a little bowl or an egg white and 1 tablespoon of water.
Use a pastry brush to brush the tops of the buns.
Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if desired.
Bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown – check a little earlier and move them lower in the oven or lower the temperature if the tops are beginning to burn.
A couple of days after making these rolls I went to Harrogate and saw this crown!
Rogaliki – Crescent Rolls
Rogaliki means little horns and these rolls are made into a crescent shaped which look like horns.
This amount of dough makes 8 rolls and you will need 2 greased baking sheets.
Take the dough and divide it into 2, take each piece separately and roll it out into a rectangle, as thinly as possible, and cut this diagonally across to make 4 triangles.
Starting with the long end roll up each piece ending with the point at the top. Curve the shape around to make a crescent shape.
Place these on the greased baking sheet with space between them. Cover loosely with a cloth and leave them to rise.
Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C
Brush with the egg white wash and sprinkle with seeds as desired.
Bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown – check a little earlier and move them lower in the oven or lower the temperature if the tops are beginning to burn.
Journey From A Polish Kitchen 