Oh, Pooh!

Disney bakes are back! Yay!! I had said I'd keep my Disney and Pixar baking collections up-to-date with each new release, so here we are with Winnie the Pooh. :-) Ok, ok, I know that this isn't exactly a new release - but when it was released I didn't realise it was in the Classics collection so I missed it *hangs head in shame*

At any-rate, I would like to get up-to-date with the Disney and Pixar movies, so Wreck it Ralph will follow shortly, followed by Monster's University (which is out next week!) and Frozen later in the year.  Exciting!

As with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, this bake could only ever be based on one thing: hunny (honey!) I baked a big honey cake for The Many Adventures, so this time I wanted to do something a little different: honey buns! The basis for this recipe was Paul Hollywood's Chelsea Buns, but I dechelseafied them and then honeyfied them to make them more suitable for our silly old bear. These buns are super sweet, sticky, and delicious!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

300ml milk

40g butter

1 tbsp runny honey

500g plain white flour

1 tsp salt

7g dried yeast

1 medium egg

For the filling:

3 tbsp honey

1tbsp cinnamon

For the topping:
100g icing sugar
2-3 tsps water

Prep time: 30 minutes (plus an hour and a half proving time)

Cook time: 25 minutes

Makes 9 buns

1. Pop the milk, butter and honey in a jug and microwave in 10 second bursts until the butter has melted. Leave to one side to cool down to a lukewarm temperature.
2.  Mix the flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl, then make a well in the centre and tip in the yeast. (This stops the salt from killing the yeast, don’t you know!)
3. Pour the lukewarm honey milk into the well created in the flour. Add the egg and then stir with a fork until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
4. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. You’re done when the dough is “smooth and elastic” (according to Mr Hollywood ;-) ) Pop the dough back into the mixing bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise for one hour.
5.  After the hours proving, the dough should have doubled in size. Tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out into an A4 sized rectangle.
6. Prepare the “filling” by mixing the honey and cinnamon together. Brush 2/3rds of this over your dough, leaving plenty of space around the edges as the honey is probably going to ooze out at the next step!
7. Carefully roll your dough up, swiss roll style, trying not to lose too much of that yummy cinnamon honey! Cut the roll into 9 slices.
8. Grease a baking tray and place the buns, cut side up into the tray, leaving no more than 2cm gap between each (Paul says we want them to bake together so that we get a lovely soft edge!) Leave these to rise for another 30 minutes whilst you preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190.
9. Once risen and rested, pop them in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and smelling lovely. If after 15 minutes the buns start to look a little too brown, just pop a bit of foil over them and let them continue to bake.
10. Remove the buns from the oven, and brush with the remaining cinnamon honey. Mix the icing sugar and water together to make a slightlyrunny icing, and drizzle this over the buns.
11. Allow them to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack, or a serving plate, if you can’t resist. These babies are best eaten warm!

Happy Thoughts

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