Afternoon Tea Week: how to make Gail's Bakery's artisan cream buns
To celebrate Afternoon Tea Week, Gail's Bakery has shared its artisan cream bun recipe. Read on to make your very own at home.
Simplicity is the essence of bread-making, and here’s a recipe that reminds us of that.
These little buns are deliciously soft and ever so slightly sweet, and thanks to the cream and the butter in them, they’re rich on the palate, with a tender crumb.
They make the cutest and most luxurious sandwiches for a party or for a child’s packed lunch and can be served with pâté, cured meats, strong cheese, soups and salads – almost anything. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you'll need to knead by hand.
Makes 22
Ingredients
For the buns:
- 15g fresh yeast
- 50ml milk
- 3 eggs
- 150ml double cream
- 70g caster sugar
- 500g strong white bread flour
- 100g butter, diced and at room temperature
- 1Â 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- egg wash
For the topping:
- 2 tsp poppy seeds
- 2 tsp sesame seeds
- 1 tsp flaked sea salt
Method
In the bowl of your stand mixer, use a fork to whisk together the yeast and milk until the yeast dissolves. Add the eggs, cream, sugar, flour and butter.
Knead with the dough hook at low speed for 5 minutes to bring the ingredients together into a dough. Add the salt and increase the speed to medium for a further 6–10 minutes, until the dough looks silky and starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Take the bowl out of the mixer and cover with a clean, damp tea towel. Leave it to sit on the worktop for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
Turn the risen dough out onto a floured surface and cut it into 22 pieces weighing around 50g each. Shape them into little balls (see p.30 for how to shape buns). Place the buns onto a baking sheet lined with non-stick baking paper and slip it inside a large plastic bag, inflated to stop the bag touching the surface of the dough. Leave to rise again for another 1 and a half hours until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/gas mark 5. Gently brush the surface of the buns with egg wash. Sprinkle over the poppy seeds or sesame seeds mixed with a little sea salt. Bake them in the oven for around 10 minutes until they are golden in colour and their bases are cooked through – lift one with a palette knife to check. Cool on a wire rack.
Variations: For extra texture and crunch, dust the rolls with semolina or polenta instead of the seeds. For a fruity version, add 35g sultanas and 25g fennel seeds to the dough itself, at the same time as you add the salt.
To freeze: If you don’t want to bake all the rolls at once, freeze them once shaped, on a baking sheet, wrapped in cling film. They’ll keep for up to a week. Defrost them overnight in the fridge, then leave to come to room temperature for 1 and a half hours, then prove and bake as above.
