An Easter tea party with home-made Hot Cross Buns

Earlier in the week I received a parcel from Merchant Gourmet inviting me to make some Hot Cross Buns, and not just any old Hot Cross Buns. Their recipe also includes Chestnut Puree and Dulce de Leche, which have to be two of my favourite things ever, so this was an opportunity that I didn't want to miss.

Chestnuts are a long time favourite, and especially my mum's Chestnut stuffing which is an absolute must at Christmas. I really must get her to write it down as even though I've tried to replicate it, I've not mastered it yet.

Dulce de Leche is a newer flavour to me - if you've not tried it, it's like a caramel sauce and delicious. I was first introduced to it at our local Argentinian restaurant who do a stunning dulce de leche bread pudding, and it's always worth trying to leave some room to end the meal on. But as they do delicious morcilla and huge steaks that's always tricky!

Making the Hot Cross Buns

Unusually there's dulce de leche mixed into the dough; to help ensure this was evenly mixed I stirred it through the warm milk and warm water mixture, and it gave the dough a warm, caramel colour which isn't surprising.

The upper arm work-out

With all the ingredients mixed, it was time for ten minutes of kneading. Its purpose is to stretch the gluten so the dough rises, but it's also good for an arm work-out! It's amazing that after ten minutes its appearance is so different.

Shaping the buns

The recipe suggests wrapping the dough around the chestnut and dulce de leche mixture but as I think the best way to have Hot Cross Buns is split and toasted I opted to use the mixture once they were toasted.

I had some challenges adding the crosses too, although they are my most successful attempt at crosses to date. I'd chosen a piping nozzle that was just too fine and the mixture struggled to flow out. I gave up at the right time and just before the piping bag burst - I wouldn't have been so happy about that. When I tried with a larger nozzle it was still hard to squeeze out, but much easier than my first go.

But when they came out of the oven, they looked great and I was impressed. 

They smelt good too, and we did well to resist trying one straight from the oven!

The Easter tea party 

Well it's (almost) Easter, so Easter bunnies, chicks and mini-Easter eggs were all included. And doesn't it look pretty?  

And yes, that's a tea cup full of mini-Easter eggs, I didn't want my tea getting cold.

The Hot Cross Buns were tasty too, they kept their caramel flavour and MOH thought they were the healthy brown sort, but the colour has come from the dulce de leche. They tasted better than the shop bought ones do, they had more about them if you know what I mean.

How do you like your Hot Cross Buns?

This is a collaborative post but all opinions are my own.

What does colour mean to you?

When Calibre Office Furniture got in touch and invited me to write a post about my favourite colour I thought I'd got it sorted.

I mean, anyone who's seen my instagram feed lately - or who knew me as I grew up - won't be surprised to learn my first choice of colour was yellow.

But then I thought about it some more and remembered when MOH and I got engaged several of my friends said they just knew I'd have a pink ring - I have a pink sapphire in my engagement ring - which shocked me, as I didn't even really know that's what I wanted until I saw it. But they were adamant and said pink was obvious as it was a colour I wore a lot. Looking in my wardrobe at the time - and now - they were right, but I knew that I didn't wear as much pink as some, so that was perhaps my benchmark.

And then I thought about green, it's a colour I'm often drawn to and (along with pink) it's a colour I wear a fair bit of.  And red, we do have a lot of it in our house, despite persuading MOH we shouldn't have red dining chairs (which btw I still don't have an ETA for - not so happy about that).

So what is my favourite colour.

I've decided that I am simply a fan of colour. I wear colour everyday. If I wear an all black outfit then well I feel, well I just don't feel myself.  I guess I'm just used to me in colour.

And looking back this week I outdid myself on colour one evening; I needed to drop my bike down to the bike shop to get my brakes checked before our Easter cycling break.  For this I wore red trousers, matched with pink and cerise striped socks, the orange vest I'd worn during the day with a purple and lime green running top over it; to top that - and to keep warm - I chose a white sweatshirt, because it was getting dark and I wanted to be seen!  When I realised quite how many colours I'd combined - mostly through circumstance it must be said - it was the white top that I thought might have been OTT!

But if you pushed me to choose one colour, right now I'll stick with yellow.

Have you considered how colour affects us, and how important it is to us - scroll down, and take a look:

This is a collaborative post but all opinions are my own.

Signs of Spring

Wasn't it a lovely day on Sunday? It was also the first day this year that I got to potter in the greenhouse, but more of that another time. As I wandered up the garden I couldn't help but notice the signs of Spring in our garden. And already it was looking different to a month ago. 

I did manage to get a shot of one of the daffodils, but only after I got hold of it. It's such a delicate colour and the frilly edges are equally as delicate. 

It's also the start of euphorbia-time in our garden. I love their acid green cheery flowerheads, MOH is less keen but he puts up with them. For the first time this weekend I heard him say there was more going on in our garden than he thought, but that you have to get up close to see it. I think that's progress because up to now his main beef has been that "it's just green."  I do wonder if that's because he's getting more involved with the garden and the allotment, could be...

The roses are starting to grow as well, the photos above and below are different plants but both have that red new growth thing going on which I'd not noticed before. Below is my Getrude Jekyll rambling rose which was my fourth wedding anniversary present from MOH. I'm pleased to see it looking so healthy as last year I moved it from its original position - probably at the wrong time - and while it lived, there were no flowers.  So hopefully I'll be luckier this year and it'll become the prolific flowerer that they can be, and it'll ramble up the fence and bring some colour close to the patio.

Further up the garden the sun was on the currant berry - which is usually one of the first to flower in the garden. This year though it's had plenty of company and I wonder what it thinks about that.

Our red camellia continues to be a late developer, compared to our neighbours anyway. Their camellia's have been flowering since Christmas - seriously - but ours, which is in a much more sheltered spot, has only managed a few flowers so far.  Let's hope it carries on. The new white camellia which I bought last April and is planted at the end of the garden is doing well.  I was surprised to see just how well when I looked back to how small it was when it arrived. It looks a bit healthier too, I think.

But the real winner for me, was the pear tree against the sky - ah the colours. It's not quite at the blossom stage yet - and it rarely gets to edible fruit stage - but it's a pretty tree, and especially when the sky is that colour behind it.

Let's hope there's more blue sky this weekend (and beyond). Is your garden starting to wake up?