Chelsea Buns

Chelsea Buns, a sweet yeasted dough stuffed full of dried fruits and then drizzled with icing too.  That all makes for a delicious bun, sweet and sticky and so very tasty.

 I made Chelsea Buns about 6 years ago, when I was just starting out on my blog.  Today I decided to make them again, this time with a video.  These buns are ideal at this time of year as they can use up any spare dried fruits you may have left over from Christmas baking.  Traditionally they are made with dried mixed fruit, which consists of sultanas, raisins, currants and chopped mixed peel.  But other dried fruits can be used too, such as cherries or cranberries.  

For mine I used dried mixed fruit. I did think that if someone has some mincemeat left over from making mince pies at Christmas, that could also be used. 

The recipe is actually quite simple, an enriched dough and then filled and rolled.  But it does take a little time as the dough has to be left to rise a couple of times before baking. The waiting time is worth it though as these buns taste so very good.

With a little apricot jam brushed on the top to glaze them and then with some icing drizzled over the top they are just perfect.

Mine baked up very well indeed and they tasted great.

Another great tasting bun is Scandinavian Cinnamon Buns.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

1. Place the flour and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer and stir until thoroughly combined. (You can make the dough by hand if you prefer).
2. Sprinkle the yeast over the top.
3. Warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan until the butter is melted and the mixture is lukewarm. 
4. Pour into the flour mixture, add the egg and mix thoroughly until the contents of the bowl come together.
5. Knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth and elastic. 
6. Form the dough into a ball and palce into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place until doubled in size(about an hour usually).
7. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll out dough into a rectangle about 40x30cm/16×12 inches.
8. Brush the surface with melted butter.
9. Sprinkle the zest over the butter.
10. Mix the cinnamon in with the sugar, then sprinkle that over too.
11. Sprinkle the dried fruit evenly over the surface too.
12. Roll the long side of the dough towards you quite tightly, until the roll is complete and tight. 
13. With a sharp knife cut into 12 equally sized rounds, 
14. Grease a deep roasting tin or baking tray thoroughly with butter.
15. Place the buns, cut side up, into the greased baking tray leaving about ½in of space between each one. As they prove again before baking they will join up nicely.
16. Cover again and leave to rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place.
17. Preheat oven to 190C/170C Fan/375F/Gas 5.
18. Bake for the buns for 20-25 minutes until golden-brown. If they start to brown too much place some tin foil over the top.
19. Remove the buns from the oven and let them cool slightly before transferring them from the tin to a cooling rack.
20. Warm the apricot jam to make it more runny and brush over the buns to glaze ,and allow to cool.
21. Mix together the icing sugar, and orange juice to make the icing, that you can drip, or pipe over the cooled buns.