Lately, I’ve started baking bread — it’s such an Irish thing to do and a great hobby to make and share the staple of life. How I wish I lived in Wellington and could trot on over to Miramar to visit Sam Forbes at Shelly Bay Bakers.
Sam is a bread head and he’s on a quest to produce the tastiest, healthiest bread on the planet … and he seems to be winning!
A chef from the age of 15, he established Shelly Bay Baker in 2018. He outgrew the small bakery in Shelly Bay and is now baking at 133A Park Road in Miramar. Sam designed and built this new facility which includes a bakery, a flour mill and a small retail shop.
Sam believes in the power of real bread and acknowledges his role in helping people eat real foods. He uses natural ingredients in all of the breads and natural levains (ferments) to bake unique and tasty sourdough breads, bagels, baguettes and more.
At the heart of Shelly Bay Baker is fresh stone-ground flour.
They source organic NZ whole grains and use their in-house mill to produce fresh stone-ground flour, which then goes directly into our breads and gives them a terrific flavour and aroma. This process adds some time and effort, but the results are well worth it. They also make this flour available in their bakery shop and throughout NZ https://shellybaybaker.co.nz/ .
Easter wouldn’t be Easter without hot cross buns. My mum lives on the farm with us in her own cottage. Up at dawn, Grandma gardens and bakes and keeps busy with an independent lifestyle that would amaze some half her age. Next month is her 100th birthday! Here is her recipe for hot cross buns.
If you can’t find barley malt syrup, you can use dark brown soft sugar as a substitute. You’ll need to add a touch more water to the dough to compensate for the lower hydration. You can also use dried yeast — you’ll need about half a 7g sachet for this recipe.
Happy Easter baking … send Lara a photo of your buns for our May edition and win a book prize! Email admin@janz.nz.
Recipe
Makes
12 buns
Ingredients
90g currants
90g raisins
20g candied orange, finely diced
Zest of 1 lemon
462g strong white flour
12g spice mix (see below)
9g salt
1 egg, at room temperature
90ml milk, at room temperature
70g barley malt syrup (available at Whole Food stores)
70g sourdough starter
7g fresh yeast
90g diced butter, at room temperature
White flour, for dusting
For the spice mix
½ tsp black pepper
2 tsp cloves
2 tsp green cardamom
2 tsp grated nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
For the cross
75g plain flour
75ml cool water
For the spiced syrup
125g sugar
1 green cardamoms
½ cinnamon stick
1 clove
100ml water
01 For the spice mix, blitz the black pepper, cloves and green cardamom in a spice grinder and combine with the grated nutmeg, ground cinnamon and ground ginger.
02 Pour 90ml hot water over the currants and raisins and leave to steep for at least an hour (the dried fruit will rehydrate and become plump and juicy), then add the diced candied orange and the lemon zest.
03 Mix all the flour, spice mix and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer. Combine the egg, milk, barley malt syrup, sourdough starter and fresh yeast and tip into the bowl on top of the flour. Mix on low speed with a dough hook attachment until the ingredients come together, then increase the speed to medium and continue to mix for a further 10-12 min.
04 Next, add the butter piece by piece. Once fully incorporated, the dough should look strong and shiny. Leave to rest for 2 min, then add the hydrated fruit until just incorporated.
05 Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for at least 3 hours (it should increase in size by 50 per cent).
06 Lightly dust the surface of the dough with white flour, then tip onto a floured work surface. Cut the dough into 100g pieces and shape each piece into a neat ball.
07 Arrange the balls of dough on a greaseproof-lined baking tray, approximately 1cm apart, and leave at room temperature for 90 min. Don’t worry about the buns increasing in size and touching each other. Heat the oven to 220C (240C non-fan).
08 To prepare the cross, mix the plain flour with the cool water until it forms a paste and transfer to a piping bag.
09 Draw the crosses on the top of each bun just before baking. Bake for approximately 20 min until golden brown.
10 While the buns are cooking, prepare the spiced syrup. Boil the ingredients together with the water and leave to simmer for 5 min.
11 Brush the hot buns generously with warm syrup as soon as they come out of the oven — the dough isn’t very sweet, so the more syrup they soak up the better!