Cinnamon Muffin Buns

These aren't the prettiest of things to look at, but oh my, the taste is incredible! This was originally an American recipe that I've converted to UK measurements and added my own little tweaky bits to. Hope you like it!

180ml Milk
55g Butter
400g Plain flour
7g Fast acting yeast
50g Granulated sugar
5ml Salt
60ml Water
1 Egg
200g Soft brown sugar
5ml Cinnamon
100g Butter
100g Sultanas

1. Warm the milk & butter together until the butter has just melted, then set aside to cool.
2. In a large bowl, put 300g of the flour, the yeast, the sugar on top of this and then the salt. It's important to keep the salt and the yeast apart initially as the salt will kill the yeast.
3. Add the water, beaten egg and the milk & butter mixture to the flour and beat until well combined.
4. Add the remaining 100g of flour and mix well together. Once the dough has formed and come together, it's ready to be kneaded.
5. Drizzle a small amount of vegetable oil onto your work surface (I like to use oil instead of flour so that the mixture doesn't dry out). Spread the oil out with your hand, this will also stop the dough from sticking to your hand.
6. Tip the dough out onto the oiled surface and knead it well for approx. 5 mins until it's smooth and no longer sticky.
7. Put your dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film.
8. Leave your dough in a warm place to rest and to allow the yeast to start to develop for about 10 mins.
9. Soften your butter and mix together thoroughly with the brown sugar and cinnamon to form a paste.
10. Lightly flour your work surface and gently roll out your dough to a rectangle approx 24 x 30cm.
11. Spread the butter mixture onto the dough, but leave a gap of 1-2 cm all round.
12. Sprinkle the dough surface evenly with your sultanas.
13. Fold over 2-3cm of your dough, starting at the long edge, then roll to the end to form a 30cm long 'sausage'.
14. Cut into 12 equal slices.
15. Grease a 12 hole, deep muffin pan.
15. Place a slice into each of the muffin cups, cover with cling film and leave to rise for 30 mins or until doubled in size.
16.  Bake in a preheated oven at 190C for 20 mins.
17. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 5 minutes in the tin.
18. Place a sheet of baking parchment onto your cooling rack, then remove the cinnamon muffin buns from the tin & leave to cool.

These are lovely served warm with a nice cup of tea or coffee.

Winning Be-Ro banana bread recipe

Please note that the original recipe is NOT mine. It’s one that I found years ago in one of my trusty fail-safe, go-to recipe books. It came from the Home Recipes with Be-Ro Flour, 37th edition. I wanted to share it, along with some little alterations that I have made along the way to all the banana bread lovers out there.

200g (8oz) Self raising flour
1.25ml (1/4 tsp) Bicarbonate of soda
2.5ml (1/2 tsp) Salt – I NEVER add this
75g (3oz) Butter – I use Stork margarine
150g (6oz) Caster sugar
2 Eggs, beaten
450g (1lb) Bananas (weighed with the skin on)
100g (4oz) Walnuts, chopped (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 180C, Fan 160C, Gas 4.
2. Grease & flour a 2lb loaf tin.
3. Mix together the flour, bi-carb and salt (if using).
4. Mash the bananas.
5. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale & fluffy.
6. Add the eggs, a little at a time, alternately with a spoonful of the flour mixture and beat well.
7. Stir in the remaining flour, bananas and walnuts (if using).
8. Pour into your prepared tin & bake for 1 1/4 hours, or until a skewer, inserted into the centre, comes out clean.
9. Leave to cool for a few minutes, then turn out to cool completely.
10. Once cool, wrap in foil and ideally leave for 24 hours before slicing & eating.

Rosie’s notes:

A) I add ALL of my ingredients to the bowl & mix as per the ‘all in one’ method.
B) Instead of greasing & lining my tins, I find it much easier & more convenient to line them with a loaf tin liner from Lakeland.
C) when the mixture is in the tin, scatter the top with some more chopped walnuts and then sprinkle some soft brown sugar over the top. The flavour that this imparts is amazing!
D) Try spreading your sliced banana bread with some proper butter for added flavour.

SHARE THIS:

Great Banana Bread Bake Off

I spent a lovely afternoon in Vanessa Kimbell’s kitchen this afternoon where we decided to have an impromptu banana bread bake-off to use up some over-ripe bananas she’d got.

I chose to go with my very trusty (and fail safe) Be-Ro recipe, whilst Vanessa chose to follow Mary Berry’s.

There was no difference in the quality of ingredients used. All the eggs were free range from Vanessa’s chickens. The flour, (star anise) sugar, milk, Stork margarine and bananas were identical with exception to the quantities specified in the recipes. They were both made using the ‘all-in-one’ method using Kenwood K-Mix machines. Poured into identical greased & floured tins and baked on the same oven shelf for an identical amount of time.

From the start, my cake looked a different colour as my recipe called for 1lb of (skin on) bananas, whilst Vanessa’s only wanted 2 whole bananas.

The resulting bake was judged by us both but to add an unbiased twist, was also judged by Vanessa’s husband, Alastair, who had no idea which one of us had baked which loaf. The initial reaction from us all was that one loaf seemed to be richer in colour, darker on the crust, had risen more and smell more intensely of banana. On cutting, from the crumb one was obviously lighter in texture.

The hands down winner was this one…

Which recipe was the winner? Why Be-Ro of course! My mum bought each of my sisters & I our first ever recipe book. Mine was the 35th edition, and since then I have added 3 more, updated versions, to my collection. It was my first ever recipe book & the one that I trust to work implicitly every time.

Thanks to Vanessa for such a lovely afternoon of laughs & baking together, and for letting me bring the winning loaf home to keep my hubby ‘sweet’ as I was later home than planned/promised.