Carrot Cake Hot Cross Buns!
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 1.5 hours rise
Cooking time: 35 minutes
- 1/6 cup/22g flour
- 1/2 cup water
- 3/4 cup milk
- 50g/1.7ozs. butter
- 1 egg
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 2 3/4 cup bread or plain all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons instant dried yeast
- 2.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2.5 teaspoons ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup pineapple, crushed and very well drained (v important, press the pineapple against a sieve and remove as much liquid as possible)
For Crosses
- 40g/1.4ozs. flour
- 4-5 tablespoons water
For Glaze
- 1/8 cup caster or superfine sugar
- 1/8 cup boiling water
- 1/2 teaspoon gelatin powder
For Cream Cheese Icing
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 125g/4ozs. cream cheese, room temperature
- 75g/2.7ozs. butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
Step 1 - First make the tangzhong roux for the buns. Whisk the 1/6 cup flour with the 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan and place on medium heat. Heat up to 65C/149F watching it carefully. Then whisk in the milk, butter, egg and salt and whisk until lumps dissolve.
Step 2 - In the bowl of an electric mixer whisk the flour, two types of sugar, yeast, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Add the milky flour roux and mix with a spatula to combine. Knead with a dough hook until the dough is very elastic and you get the window pane effect (where you can gently pull the dough apart and it becomes so thin you can almost see through it without it breaking). It can take anything from 10-15 minutes on the lowest speed of a mixer to do this. For this reason I don't recommend kneading this by hand unless you are a complete masochist.
Step 3 - Shape into a ball with no cracks on the top and cover and allow to rise to double the size. Punch down and knead in the carrot, walnuts and pineapple. This will be a fairly sticky mixture (that's why draining pineapple is very, very important). Line a baking tray with parchment and shape 12 to 13 buns (I have the extra bun as my cook's treat). You will probably need some more flour so that it doesn't stick. Place on the lined tray a little bit apart from each other and allow to rise for 30 minutes or so. After 30 minutes they should sit against each other but not too snugly.
Troubleshooting: your dough will be sticky but try not to add too much flour. A little is fine because flour varies from supplier to batch but adding too much will affect the texture of the buns. Instead, add a little flour and then lightly oil your hands just before shaping them.
Step 4 - Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Just before the end of the second rise, mix the flour and water together for the crosses and place in a piping bag or a small zip lock bag. Snip off the end and pipe crosses over the buns. Bake for 30 minutes.
Step 5 - 5 minutes before the baking time is up, mix the sugar, boiling water and gelatine together to make up the glaze. As soon as the buns come out of the oven, glaze the hot buns and allow to cool.
Step 6 - You can serve these with plain butter but for the real carrot cake flavour make the cream cheese icing. Process the icing sugar in a small food processor to get rid of lumps. Then add the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and salt and process until smooth. Split open a bun and slather with plenty of cream cheese icing.