Tails’ Blography

So! Yesterday I had an urge to make some hot cross buns…so I did! And they came out great! I even did a squeal of joy when I saw them after I took them out of the oven.

Ingredients:

Buns:

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup castor sugar
• 1 packet of yeast
• 1 pinch salt
• 1tsp of both nutmeg and cinnamon
• 200g raisins and fruits (diced, the larger raisins pop out of the dough while you’re kneading it)
• 60g butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups warm milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Crosses:

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 cup water
• Melted apricot jam for basting

Method:

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. You dont have to sift the flour if you knead it enough. Make a well in the centre and pour in the wet ingredients (mixed beforehand in a jug). Mix with a spoon til incorporated.

Knead on lightly floured surface for 10min or until elastic and smooth. I did mine for 5min. Leave in bowl to dbl in size (approx 1 hr). Knead again and roll into a sausage shape. Cut into 16 or so pieces and roll into balls.

Place in a lined pan, and they can be close to touching. Leave for another 30 min to rise some more.

After 30min, baste dough balls with jam. Make a paste from 1/3 cup flour and 1/4 cup of water (dont thin this down more like I did). Scoop it into a ziplock bag, snip a corner and squeeze a cross onto each dough ball.

Bake in preheated oven at 200 degrees Celcius for 20-25min or until golden on top. Remove and leave to cool for 10min before serving.

Leave to cool for 10min and then serve! Clearly my oven bakes unevenly lol as some are more golden than others The ones at the back left look downright anemic but they were more browned in person!

PS: Orginal recipe from the very entertaining One Pot Chef! Some great recipes on his channel guys! Check them out!

Posted via my HTC!

In winter, thinking about homemade soup brings me to days of rain, wind and cold. Whilst preparing and making this soup, I cant help be thankful for everything I have. A warm bed at night, warm clothes, and a roof over my head to name a few. It’s heartbreaking to know there are so many out there without these essentials. If you can, donate a blanket or other warm items whenever you can to homeless shelters. Keep an eye out for collection boxes and try help where you can.

Homemade Soup!

This leads me to my homemade soup recipe. I’ve been eating too much bread lately at work so I’ve been making and bringing soup for lunch instead. Much healthier, warmer, and tastier. And if you prefer a little carbs in your diet, then a slice of toast would go down well with this meal too.

When making this soup, you can omit the meat if you prefer a plain veg soup, so just tweak it the way you’d prefer it. You could also blend it all to make a thicker, puree if you dont like chunky pieces (I’m a fan of chunks in the soup). Kids might prefer the puree version too. Also feel free to add pretty much any veg you’d like. The only thing to note, is potato doesnt freeze well so if you’re going to freeze it, remove the potato chunks first.

First, put your tomatoes into a bowl and fill with boiling water. Leave for a few minutes, then replace hot water with cold water. When tomatoes are cool, take a sharp knife and gently slice the skin down one side. The skin should peel away with ease. Dice this up and put in a large bowl.

Dice up your onion and cube your meat. Put this in a pot with a tiny dash of olive oil. Not too much oil, as the meat will provide extra when browning.

Peel your carrots, turnips & potatoes.

Chop & grate your veg and put it in a bowl

Chop up half your carrots into thin slices. I prefer using the end part of the carrot so your pieces arent too huge floating in the pot. Chop up your celery and potatoes and put all chopped food into the bowl with the diced tomatoes (if you’re going to take a while with the grating, put the potato chunks into a bowl of water so they dont go brown whilst waiting). Grate the left over ingredients and add to the bowl of chopped veg.

Prepare the brown onion soup mix/Ina Paarmen’s stock powder.

Brown the meat & onions, prepare the stock, add the veg and top up with water

Brown your onions and meat on high. Add the rest of the vegetables and samp. Pour in the stock, top up with boiling water and crumble in your stock cube. Turn to a low heat, cover, and leave to simmer for one to one and a half hours, stirring occasionally. Serve hot.

Store in glass when in fridge, as soup will sour when kept in plastic. Freeze in plastic, but remove potatoes.