Bath Bun recipe

Eat like Jane Austen did, and make this eighteenth century bun for tea. Best eaten with lots of butter. Or jam.

This recipe uses yeast, so there will be some proving time necessary.

You can read about the history of Bath Buns, too.

Ingredients

Details

  • Cuisine: English
  • Recipe Type: Bread
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Preparation Time: 30 mins
  • Cooking Time: 20 mins
  • Serves: 12

Step-by-step

  1. Make a pre-dough: measure the flour in a bowl. Make a well and put in the yeast and the sugar. Pour over the milk. Flick some flour over to close the well. Cover and leave for an hour.
  2. Make the dough: add the salt, eggs and butter to the flour and mix the ingredients together. Pull out on to the counter and knead well for 10 minutes.
  3. Pop the dough back in the bowl and let it rest for 15 minutes. Fold in the fruit and the peel and then cover the dough and let it rest for 2 hours, covered with a tea towel.
  4. Shaping the buns: line a deep roasting tin with parchment and, with a big spoon, simply blob about 12 blobs of dough on the parchment. Sprinkle them liberally with rock sugar if using and then cover them with a tea towel. The logic of using a roasting tin is that the deep sides hold the tea towel over the tops of the buns so it does not stick. If you don’t have a baking tin with deep sides, lightly flour a tea towel before placing it over the buns.
  5. Let these rest for 1 hour or so until they have doubled in size.
  6. Preheat the oven to 220 and bake the buns for 15-20 minutes until they are golden and sound hollow when they are tapped. Cool completely before eating.

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All our baking recipes

The history of Bath Buns

The history of the clootie dumpling 

The history of maslin, the original rustic bread

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