Spiced fruit buns

These are based on hot cross buns, which we love and haven't always been able to get hold of in our travels around the world. This version is more of a spicy teacake, delicious toasted and buttered and is one of our favourite breakfast foods. In Canada I couldn't get hold of mixed spice, but I could buy tea masala, an Indian spice mix used for making spiced chai tea. Slightly more peppery than the mixed spice I buy in England, it works really well. If you can't get mixed spice, use ground cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. They freeze really well; put them in ziplok bags once they are cool and freeze the day you make them.

• 540g plain flour
• 50g granulated sugar
• 2.5 tsp dried yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tsp mixed spice
• 50g dried mixed peel
• 150g dried fruit (mainly raisins and sultanas, but a few cranberries, cherries or apricots are a nice addition)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 200ml warm milk
• warm water
• 40g butter, melted

1. Put all the dry ingredients in a mixer bowl.
2. Add the milk to the beaten egg, stir in the melted butter, then top up to 400ml with warm water.
3. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients.
4. Knead using a dough hook attachment (or by hand if you don't have a mixer). Add more flour if the mixture is too wet.
5. Shape into buns using around 90g for each bun. This usually ends up with 13 buns, a baker's dozen.
6. Place on a baking sheet, cover with a cloth and leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until roughly doubled in size.
7. Optional - for hot cross buns, make a paste from 75g flour and about 5 tbsp water and pipe crosses onto each bun after proving.
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 F/220 C for about 10 - 15 minutes until golden and cooked through.
9. Optional - glaze the buns: immediately on removing from the oven, pour over a sugar syrup made from 2 tbsp water and 2 tbsp sugar, heated together until reduced and syrupy (but not caramelized).

Basic Bread and variations

A perfect loaf made by Tom. White with a little multigrain flour substituted

Living overseas means you can't always get a good old British style loaf. In many places the bread tastes very sweet (in fact, I think it is actually getting sweeter here too, but that's another story). We made a lot of our own bread using variations on this recipe. It fills the house with a delicious aroma and there is always a race to get the 'knobby' (end of the loaf) and scoff it whilst still hot with lashings of butter.

Basic white loaf:

600g strong white flour (value brand plain white flour also seems to work fine)
2tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2.5 tsp instant dried yeast (or one sachet)
400ml warm water

1. Put the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add the water and combine, then knead until stretchy and smooth. This is easiest in a food processor with a dough hook, but not difficult to do by hand and good for working out the frustrations of the day.
3. Shape the dough roughly to fit a large loaf tin. Place in the greased loaf tin, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place until more or less doubled in size. Beware of putting on a warm windowsill where the cat likes to sit, unless you want a cat paw shaped dip in the loaf.
4. Preheat the oven to very hot (210 centigrade, 400 fahrenheit).
5. Bake the loaf for 25 minutes until golden brown. Tap the bottom of the loaf to check if it is done - it should sound like a drum.Cool on a wire rack and be prepared to defend against snackers.

Variations

Just vary the type of flour, add in seeds, nuts, herbs, garlic, fried onions, olives, sundried tomatoes or whatever takes your fancy. Adjust the amount of liquid if adding wet or oily ingredients. Shape into rolls, bake in a loaf tin, make a round loaf, the variations are endless. For rolls, this amount of dough will make about 13 rolls - weigh out roughly 90g pieces of dough for each roll. Reduce the baking time for rolls to about 15 minutes or so.

One of our favourites is just to substitute around 200g of the flour with multigrain or granary flour. It's also nice to roll the dough in sesame or poppy seeds.

For a delicious herb and garlic bread, gently saute a crushed clove of garlic with some dried herbs (eg basil, oregano) in a tablespoon of olive oil and add it into the dough with the water (reduce the amount of water slightly or you will need to add more flour to stop the dough being too wet).