weekend without makeup

so, i have this terrible habit of ignoring whatever i should be doing in favour of other things i find more interesting; especially if what i should be doing has a deadline on it. it meant i spent time knitting cardigans, filing fashion magazines in chronological order, and making cakes every other day whenever i had an essay due at university. about the time my dissertation was due, my house looked like martha stewart had come to stay, so neat and filled with newly crafted things as it became. it resulted in several all night typing binges, but i still managed a first, and i got lots of cake into the bargain. this method of living hasn't changed at all, and this weekend, in a petulant, slightly hormone fuelled hissyfit at all the paperwork coming my way at the moment, i gave myself fully over to the sway of all things distraction related.

i decided to make hot cross buns. i mean, i know i'm early on this one, but before you point any fingers at me, the supermarkets have had easter stuff in since january (i don't think either of us here at pot tossery are complaining, pretty sure both of us have salvaged bad days with bags of mini eggs at various points this year) so i don't feel guilty in the slightest at having made hot cross buns early. not least because i don't believe in jesus (not since child-me realized brunette girls only get to be shepherds in the christmas play, anyway), i just have a sweet tooth. it does feel a little jarring though, making religious food when you're in fact an atheist, but i rationalize it in that eventually all such symbolism in eating becomes a sort of hollow signifier; if christians don't object to tesco selling their imagery, they're hardly likely to be annoyed at little old me whipping up a few. and since these little buns have been a presence in my life every year since day one, i can honestly say i feel no guilt regarding the cultural appropriation. there is also the fact that hot cross buns are a continuation of the yeasted baking i have been busying myself with lately, and as a consequence i got my recipe from daniel stevens' river cottage bread handbook:

hot cross buns

250g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

250g plain white flour

125ml warm water

125ml warm milk

5g powdered dried yeast

10g salt

50g caster sugar

1 medium free range egg

50g butter

100g raisins, currants or sultanas (i used half sultanas, half dried cranberries, as this is what i had to hand)

finely grated zest of 1/2 orange

1 tsp ground mixed spice

for the crosses:

50g plain white flour

100ml water

to finish:

1 tbsp apricot (or other jam), sieved

1 tbsp water

if you have a food mixer, combine the flours, water, milk, yeast, salt and sugar in the bowl and fit the dough hook. add the egg and butter and mix to a sticky dough. now add the dried fruit, orange zest and spice, and knead on low speed until silky and smooth. you can do this by hand, but it will be sticky to handle (note: i did. and it is.). cover the dough and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour until doubled in size.

knock back the risen dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. shape into rounds, and dust with flour. place on a floured board, covered with plastic or linen and leave to prove for about half an hour until roughly doubled in size.

preheat the oven to 200 degrees c/gas mark 6. to make the crosses, whisk the flour and water together until smooth, then transfer to a greaseproof paper piping bag and snip off the end to make a fine hole (or use a plastic food bag with a corner snipped off). transfer the risen buns to a baking tray and pipe a cross on top of each one, then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

meanwhile, melt the jam with the water in the pan. brush over the buns to glaze as you take them from the oven. transfer to a wire rack to cool. serve warm, cool, or toasted. so here are mine:

it is perfectly okay to laugh, i know i did when i got them out of the oven. maybe only real christians can make the crosses right? or maybe using a miss selfridge jewellery bag as a piping bag kind of lacks the correct finesse? oh well. they're not going to win any beauty contests but they were damned amazing. my improvising with dried cranberries and using my honey and lemon marmalade to glaze them paid off-adding a sharpness that would have otherwise been absent. they really didn't last very long in my house, i might even have to make another batch by popular demand this coming weekend, which would be more appropriate. i would definitely make these again just as normal fruit buns, they have a longer lifespan than other buns due to the fact they can be toasted, so they don't stale as such, but nothing so far has knocked the chelsea buns off the top spot in my estimations.

okay, so the other baking i did was of a slightly more nostalgic bent. there are certain recipes that you make so many times that just the act of gathering the ingredients on a worktop is enough to put you in a kind of ritualized trance state. one of these recipes, for me, is nigella lawson's recipe for banana bread in how to be a domestic goddess. i started making this in halls of residence, because i am finickety about bananas, and rather prefer them slightly underripe, and the bunches at the market i shopped at were so big that i could never eat them all before they started to tinge brown on the skins and sweeten. i made this so regularly that my flatmate at the time, dan, still maintains that the funniest state he's ever seen me in is savagely hungover, eyes barely open, fag dangling out of mouth, pulling this out of the oven to cool on our kitchen windowsill. it started as an exercise in not wasting food, but the recipe was so good i have spent the rest of my adult life buying too many bananas for my purposes in order to whip up a loaf of this. it's the easiest recipe ever, and i'd rank it up there as one of the best tasting too. so without further ado:

banana bread

100g sultanas (i used dried cranberries this time as i had run out of sultanas making the hot cross buns)

75ml bourbon or dark rum

175g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

125g unsalted butter, melted

150g sugar

2 large eggs

4 small, very ripe bananas (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed

60g chopped walnuts (i used almonds because at the time of baking i was also out of walnuts)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

loaf tin, buttered and floured or with a paper insert.

put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil. remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.

preheat the oven to 170 degrees c/gas mark 3, and get started on the rest. put the flour, baking powder, bicarb, and salt in a medium sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well. in a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas, and the vanilla extract. add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit. scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1-1 1/4 hours. when it's ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. leave to cool.

so here's mine:

again, possibly not a beauty contest winner, but if it ever needs tarting up i've just mixed cream cheese with icing sugar to taste, spred thickly on top, and dusted lightly with ground cinnamon, to great success. as you read, i made a few adaptations, and have always done so, using whatever's around in terms of dried fruit, nuts, and soaking liquid. i love this recipe so much, i like the idea of acquiring basic recipes and creating my own set of cooking classics, and this one is top of the list. it never fails to rise, it is always pleasingly moist, and when cooked in any kind of shared living space, lasts no more than an hour after coming out of the oven. what more could you possibly want in a recipe?

so a weekend of distracting myself and those around me with sugary treats was had. to those who might, bizarrely, be worried about such things, i did eventually get round to my paperwork, resulting in sitting some seriously lengthy exams today. but the distraction was far more fun than the satisfaction of completing the task actually in hand. i think we'll file that under reason #273645 why i don't yet classify as a grown up.