Plump Breakfast Buns

 We were out of breakfast buns this Friday, so for our special Friday morning breakfast I made spelt thick/fluffy pancakes with bananas in a toffee sauce zinged up with a squeeze of lime.  We are not easily deterred from 'Friday Bun Day' and that is now postponed till Sunday.

Floating around on my desk has been a printed out recipe for Perfectly Plump Hot Cross Buns by Darryn Bruton, from Bakery Bits.  This recipe was floating around in my head, and I felt they would make an excellent breakfast bun, especially as I had missed out on baking my own hot cross buns this year. I hadn't read the recipe at all,  really, until getting down into the kitchen with the sheets.  The first hurdles was that it was written with a mixer in mind, and that the Tangzhong was made with Crème Fraîche.  Did that deter me? Did I give up?

Plump Breakfast Buns

I liked the ratios of fruit, and in this batch I used chopped crystallised lemon peel, sultanas, dried cranberries, and currants.  For sure I shall use a Tangzhong when making other sweet buns.  I kept back a little of beaten egg as egg wash, meaning I didn't use more than two eggs in total, no crosses were added since the moment as passed, and I didn't glaze with extra sugar and apricot jam, since they were heading for the freezer, neither shall I glaze them when getting them out. I'll fold the printout and place them in one of the cookery books called 'The Book of Buns'! The reason is so that I can find it quickly next time I am looking for a recipe for fruited buns.

Six on Saturday - Mid May 2026

To join in or just to view what a few of us gardeners have to say about the past week in our gardens, head over to Jim's for his Garden Ruminations.

Here are my six:

1. I have just found out that the lovely pink Pimpinella major 'Rosea' is also called 'Pink Cow Parsley' but the botanical names tell me it is not a form of the white cows parsley that is edging our country lanes at the moment.. It was the stand out plant for me on their terrace, when I visited Wyndcliffe Court Gardens, and now I have a clump worth showing. 

It really does want to grow: I moved it last year and I must have left a little bit, as it has come up flowering in its original place as well, and of course that will have to be cleared away at some time as it is a little too close to the Ginkgo.

2. Another plant which I thought I had dug up and moved to the back garden, must have had some smaller bulbs left behind.  This is from the original patch: a fair few Tulipa sprengeri 'Trotter’s Form' flowering on the shady side of a shrub.

Tulipa sprengeri 'Trotter’s Form'

The larger bulbs that I moved and dotted around the back garden are somewhat taller and sturdier, and I hope they get to self seed around.

That self seeded poppy is hardly the plant to establish scale as it is growing larger than any poppy I have ever seen.

3. A more demure little plant that self seeds around is the short lived perennial Semiaquilegia ecalcarata.  It comes up nicely hiding the remaining snowdrop and crocus leaves, but at the stage when these are flowering they form a pretty low rosette of leaves. Next week the foliage from those early spring bulbs will be withered and ready to be cleared away.

Semiaquilegia ecalcarata

Close up of the dainty flowers

4. Although we have no lawn, this beetle was found on a leaf of the ivy that we are currently cutting back.  I have read up and believe it to be The European Chafer Beetle.  

5. Deadheading little spring flowering plants: a lovely spring flowering plant which is easily increased, such that there are now four clumps in the garden is this pale purple Polemonium 'Lambrook Mauve'.  It has a fairly long flowering period if you take the trouble of dead heading it. It also holds itself nicely in little vases of spring flowers. 

Polemonium 'Lambrook Mauve'

6. Another plant that benefits from deadheading, is in that same conservatory bed, This Heuchera which I acquired as a little plant on a charity stall had no name, but it sure is living up to its alternative name of 'Coral Bells'.  There are so many different varieties of heuchera that unless someone can name it for me, I rather not spend the time trying to identify it.  

Even though we have had forecast for rain, during the past few days here, as the clouds passed by and from time to time it grew very dark, the potential for rain moved on and  we have missed any meaningful rain. Next week it is supposedly going to get warmer and drier.  The most notable effect on the garden has been the strong winds, which has meant a lot of picking up of leaves blown from the Holm Oaks. 

This week I went to visit Erika who I have recently met.  We share a similar interest in nature and gardening, she very kindly gave me a bowl of  the mouse tail plant (Arisarum proboscideum), and a piece of a beautiful pink hardly Chrysanthemum  'Dulwich Pink'. I also learnt from her about soaking of mealworms for birds.  The male robin is still coming to my hand to be fed, with the female being happy to come fairly close on the ground. We haven't seen the juveniles but they are close by as the female mainly goes off with food just over the garden wall.

Snittsidan Bullar

 It is over ten years since I first baked this bun.  I had any number of buns I was going to bake this afternoon. I had a picnic in mind and Mr S reminded me of the delicious Stone-baked Semolina Rolls I made a few weeks ago.  These were from the Bake with Jack Home bakers' club, but I didn't have sufficient semolina.

Here are the buns out of the oven.  I increased the listed ingredients by 50% as I wanted some larger buns this time. I used a mixture of Matthews stone ground spelt, and Stoneground strong bread flour a Traditional White from their Regenerative Farmed Wheat, and a whole wheat Rye flour.  

It just shows that when following a recipe it is important to real the whole recipe right to the end...this time I forgot to brush olive oil to glaze the hot buns.

Snittsidan Bullar is a Swedish bun where the dough with rye is cut from a long roll, and the sticky side is then pressed into mixed seeds. The recipe is from The Book of Buns by Jane Mason. 

One other person has posted about Snttsidan Bullar and when I look through some of Rose's recipes I found a lovely one for a roasted cauliflower and hazelnut pesto pasty, which I am hoping to try soon.

Six on Saturday - 2 May 2026

 It is Saturday, and the days are just whizzing by, but now, should I wake up at the crack of dawn I have time enjoy a saunter round the garden before him indoors wakes up and it is breakfast time.   I'm joining in with others over at Jim's and look forward to reading what others share. 

1. Living up to its name and trying to make me happier is Cistus hybridus 'Little Miss Sunshine'.  Do you remember I bought three last year?  If not,  I do, since they are still not planted into the garden but were potted up into large ceramic pots and are on the edge of the gravel area. Even without the flowers the yellow margin gives these little shrubs a certain presence.

Cistus hybridus Little Miss Sunshine

2. Yes, more yellow is coming from the rambler on the back wall of the garden, when earlier this year Mr S put up some very nice wires properly tensioned with stainless steel. Rosa banksiae 'Lutea' is looking wonderful after being first planted in September 2023.

Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'

The squirrels spent time nibbling the topmost buds, but the plant seems to have recovered from that.

3. Yes, another yellow: this time in the gravel garden, courtesy of the cuttings I rooted in 2023.  You can see that I have been checking back on my blog to find names etc and came across the little note of triumph. 

Helianthemum Golden Queen

I have some others around the seating circle and they can certainly withstand the sun and dry windy conditions, which I am finding very taxing indeed.

4. Taxing conditions indeed in the garden even in the shade, and to think this was taken on Thursday mid afternoon still in April. In the shade 24.3 C and only 11% humidity..and where does it get the forecast of rain?  The weather forecast on TV said rain in the far southwest, but perhaps there has just been a big drop in barometric pressure. We did have a very little shower on Friday, but just enough to dampen the foliage.

The plants are stressing out, spring foliage is turning brown. The evergreen oaks are shedding heaps of leaves as well as pollen and the constant breeze from the north/north east which is an unusual direction has meant the whole garden is now covered in leaves, which have to be removed as they take several years to break down unlike softer leaves. You can understand why I need to focus on detail to help lift my spirits. The male robin continues to take feed from my hand, with the more timid female just being brave enough to take food from the ground just by my feet. Yellow is my happy colour this week. 

5. Trying to focus on a few of the beautiful open blooms on Rosa Canary Bird, which again is a lovely yellow rose in the back garden....

Rosa Canary Bird

It became clear that one little Flower Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) is lying in wait to ambush  some unsuspecting insect visiting this yellow rose, the colour of which it is mimicking.

Flower Crab Spider

6.  I used to grow Auriculas in long toms and such like terracotta pots singly, and have even been known to enter them into local competitions.  Those times have past, and during the last year I was somewhat disappointed by how they were attacked by insects and also suffered with either too much heat, or too much rain etc.  The remaining ones I have grouped together finding keeping just one cultivar in a large pot more to my liking.  I suppose I really ought to bring out some little sticks to keep the stems on the flowers upright. 

Primula auricula Sarah Millington

Seedlings are up, cuttings continue to be taken, primulas are being divided and yet the leaves have only started to be collected.  Hopefully it won't be so hot next week, and I can start to clear the leaves. 

 

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother's Favourite Cake - 'The Cake' which we enjoyed at a Garden Open Day at Brow Cottage

 Several of us enjoyed a drink and cake at an open garden recently. It was so good that I went to ask the ladies serving if there was any chance of the recipe.  I was told that it was called Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother's, Favourite Recipe.  Whilst still in the garden Carolyn confirmed the recipe on her phone and sent me the link.

Back home I searched and found a number of versions of what is in effect a Date and Walnut Traybake.  There is also a Queen Elizabeth tray cake but with coconut topping.  Bearing in mind that this cake was probably first issued around 1953 for the coronation, 'The Cake' most probably predates this. Compared to many modern versions of which I can recommend from Mary Berry's Baking Bible, her Date and Walnut Traybake, 'The Cake' has far less rich ingredients.  Bearing in mind that the recipe probably was around in the 1940s, whilst The Queen Mother was still The Queen, when there was still rationing for many items, it would have been considered a real treat. Various sources tell me this was published in various places such as ladies's magazines with encouragement to make it to sell to raise funds.

Here is the cake I made for when my gardening friends Alison and Julie came to visit last week.

What I did like was that in one old typewritten recipe, there was the note that instead of single cream you could add the top of the milk.  Since we are on a goat's milk, butter etc diet, and have our milk delivered unhomogenised it was easy for me to draw off the cream from the top of the bottle. I don't think back in those days they had the traybake cake tin that many of us now have, and since I do not have a swiss roll tin, I used that.  These days a traybake usually measures 30 x 23 cm and a swiss roll tin 33 x 23.  I think the larger swiss roll tin would give a thinner cake similar to the one we had at the garden open day.  Also the vanilla flavour came through very nice, and next time I make this I would increase the vanilla in the cake, and put a little into the fudge topping as well.

This is a delicious cake and well worth trying.

Cake Ingredients and Method

225g ready stoned cooking dates chopped

5g bicarbonate of soda

250ml boiling water

Combine these three and set aside whilst you line your tin with baking parchment, weigh and prepare all your other ingredients. These must be cool before adding later to the mixture

Preheat your oven to 160C fan

200g caster sugar ( this is less than most recipes I found)

80g butter soften (a little more than several recipes which quoted around 50g)

1 large egg beaten

1tsp Vanilla essence...which I would increase to 1.5 tsp next time

285 g plain flour sifted with

5g baking powder and 

2g fine sea salt

60g chopped walnuts

Cream the sugar and butter together till pale.  This takes some effort first with a fork then with a hand held mixer as the ratio of sugar to butter is very high.  Then add the egg and whisk again till light.  Fold in the flour and the cooled date and water mixture, along with the chopped dates.  I lightly bake all my walnuts first as this really brings out the flavour.  

Bake in the preheated oven for about 35 mins.  Remove from the oven, then the tin, and place on a cooling rack.

Topping

30g butter

70g Soft Brown Sugar

2 Tbsp single cream or top of the milk

1/2 tsp vanilla essence (next time)

Extra Walnuts

Combine all the ingredients in a small pan, heat up and bring to the boil, keep boiling for three minutes or so, and have a spatula ready both to stir and stop any catching at the bottom of the pan, and to spread this across your cooling bake.  Scatter with more bits of walnuts (lightly baked).  When cool remove from the paper and cut into sections.  It kept well for several days, and I also froze two long sections ready to bring out at a later date.

I liked this fudge topping and will be using again on other cake recipes.

Do leave comments whether it is about this recipe that you have tried, or further information about the history of this cake.