Bath Buns

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large mixing bowl
• •Wooden spoon
• •Baking sheet lined with parchment
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Pastry brush
• •Clean tea towel

Instructions

1. 1

   Wake the dough

   Tip the flour into a large bowl. Add the yeast to one side and the salt and sugar to the other. They don't get on if they meet too soon. Pour in the warm milk, beaten eggs, and lemon zest, and bring it together with a wooden spoon until you have a rough, shaggy dough. It should feel sticky and a little reluctant. That's right.

   Blood temperature means you should barely feel the milk on the inside of your wrist. Hot milk will kill the yeast before it has a chance to do anything useful.
2. 2

   Knead in the butter

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for five minutes. It will be sticky. Resist the urge to add more flour. Once it starts to feel smoother, begin adding the softened butter a knob at a time, kneading each piece in fully before the next. The dough will go slack and shiny, then come back together. Keep going until it feels silky, elastic, and faintly cool to the touch. Eight to ten minutes by hand. Less in a mixer, but you'll miss the feel of it.

3. 3

   First rise

   Put the dough in a clean, lightly buttered bowl. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave somewhere warm but not hot. A cool kitchen is fine; it just takes longer. The dough is ready when it has roughly doubled and feels pillowy when you press it with a fingertip. An hour and a half on a warm day, two hours on a cooler one. Trust your eye, not the clock.

4. 4

   Add the fruit

   Tip the risen dough back onto the surface and flatten it gently into a rough rectangle. Scatter over the candied peel, sultanas, and caraway seeds if you're using them. Fold the dough over itself and knead briefly until the fruit is evenly distributed. Don't overwork it. A few sultanas peeking through is exactly right.

5. 5

   Shape the buns

   Divide the dough into ten equal pieces. The easiest way is to halve it, halve each half, then divide each quarter into two and a half. Or weigh them if that suits you better. Shape each piece into a tight, round bun by cupping your palm over it and rolling on an unfloured patch of the surface until the surface goes taut and smooth. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving room between for them to spread.

6. 6

   Second rise

   Cover loosely with the tea towel and leave to prove for forty minutes to an hour. They should look puffy and pillowy and have nearly doubled. When you press one gently, the indent should spring back slowly rather than vanish at once. Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan while you wait.

7. 7

   Glaze and crown

   Beat the remaining egg with the two tablespoons of milk and brush the buns generously. Don't be shy. The glaze is what gives them that deep, lacquered, mahogany top. Scatter the sugar nibs over each bun, pressing them in lightly so they stay put. They should look like little crowns.

   Real sugar nibs are worth tracking down, but if you can't find them, bash a handful of white sugar cubes in a tea towel with a rolling pin. You want pieces the size of small peas, not powder.
8. 8

   Bake to gold

   Bake for eighteen to twenty minutes. They're ready when the tops are deep gold, the sugar nibs have started to crackle and catch in places, and the bottoms sound hollow when you tap them. The kitchen will smell of warm butter, citrus, and yeast, which is one of the better smells a kitchen produces. Cool on a wire rack for at least fifteen minutes before tearing into one. They need a moment to settle.

Chef Tips

• •Sugar nibs (sometimes sold as nib sugar or pearl sugar) are the traditional topping and worth seeking out. They don't melt in the oven the way ordinary sugar does, which is the whole point. Failing that, crush sugar cubes coarsely in a tea towel. Don't use granulated; it just disappears.
• •Don't skip the lemon zest. It's a small ingredient with a large job. It cuts through all that butter and sugar and stops the buns feeling cloying. The same goes for the caraway, if you're brave enough. It's old-fashioned and a bit divisive, but it belongs here.
• •These are best on the day they're baked, while the sugar still cracks and the crumb is soft. Day-old buns are still good split and toasted under the grill with a smear of butter. After that, they're past their best. They're not designed to keep.
• •A pot of strong black tea is the only correct accompaniment. Builder's tea, hot, with milk. Coffee feels wrong. Trust me on this.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made the night before and given its first rise slowly in the fridge overnight. Bring it back to room temperature for half an hour before shaping the buns the next morning.
• •Best eaten on the day of baking. They'll keep in a tin for a day, but the sugar topping softens and they lose their crackle. Split and toasted under the grill with butter, they're still very welcome on day two.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 115g)