Inspired by Shady Baker Jane’s gorgeous fruit buns, I baked a batch for Pete last weekend.
I used a variation of my sourdough fruit loaf recipe, increasing the water just a little as the mix seemed to need it on the day. According to my iPhone note, the buns included walnuts, sultanas, dried sour cherries, cranberries, sunflower kernels, golden raisins, candied orange rind, Greek figs and dried blueberries.
- 200g active sourdough starter ( 166% hydration, ie. fed at a ratio of one cup water to one cup flour)
- 700g bakers/bread flour
- 375g – 400g water
- 15g extra virgin olive oil
- 12g fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon mixed spice (I used Herbie’s)
- 10g brown sugar
- 600g mixed dried fruit and nuts
Note: 600g of fruit and nuts is a ridiculous quantity for this much dough and made shaping the buns very difficult. If you’ve just starting baking bread, you might want to use a much smaller quantity (say 300g), which will make the mixture far more manageable. As so often happens, I got carried away.
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the starter, water, oil, mixed spice, brown sugar, fruit and nuts. I cut the figs up into smaller pieces, and finely chopped the candied rind, but otherwise left the other inclusions whole.
2. Add the flour and sea salt and mix to form a shaggy dough. Make sure all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrape off your fingers, cover the bowl with clingfilm or a tea towel, and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
3. Uncover the bowl and give the dough a quick knead. Cover again and allow to prove until double in size – in my winter kitchen, this took about 8 hours (in summer, it might take half the time).
4. Turn the dough onto an oiled surface, give it a couple of folds onto itself, then divide it into 12 – 13 equal portions. The weight of each bun will depend on the quantity of fruit and nut you’ve used – I made 13 x 150g buns. Shape each portion as best as you can into a tight round bun – try to get as much fruit inside the dough as possible to minimise burning. Mine were pretty messy…
5. Lay the buns out on a parchment lined tray, cover loosely with a teatowel and allow to prove – mine didn’t expand much at stage, maybe 50%. Preheat oven to 220C with fan.
6. Slash a cross into the top of each bun and spritz with a little water, then place the tray into the oven, dropping the temperature to 200C with fan as you do. Bake for 20 minutes, then rotate the tray and reduce the temperature to 175C with fan for a further 10 minutes, or until well browned. Fruit buns have a tendency to burn because of all the sugar, so please keep an eye on them.
Pete loved these, but as you can see, there’s not a lot of dough holding all the fruit together!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 