Hot Cross Buns for a Cold Day

Ingredients (makes 16 buns)

for the dough

• ⅔ cup milk
  
• ½ stick butter
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 clove
• 2 cardamom pods
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 x ¼ oz packet instant yeast
• ¾ cup mixed dried fruit
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 large egg

for the egg wash

• 1 large egg (beaten with a little milk)

for the cross on the buns

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ½ tablespoon superfine sugar
• 2 tablespoons water

for the sugar glaze

• 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
• 1 tablespoon boiling water

Instructions

1. Heat the milk, butter, orange zest, clove and cardamom pods in a saucepan until the butter melts, then leave to infuse. I have gone rather cardamom mad recently, but this short aromatic infusion gives a heavenly scent to the little fruited buns later.
2. Measure the flour, yeast and dried fruit into a bowl and add the spices. When the infused milk has reached blood temperature take out the clove and cardamom pods, and beat in the egg. Pour this liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients.
3. Knead the bowl either by hand or with a machine with a dough hook; if it is too dry add a little more warm milk or water. Keep kneading until you have silky, elastic dough, but bear in mind that the dried fruit will stop this from being exactly satin smooth.
4. Form into a ball and place in a buttered bowl covered with clingfilm, and leave to prove overnight in the fridge.
5. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/220ºC/425ºF. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
6. Punch the dough down, and knead it again until it is smooth and elastic. Divide into 16 balls and shape into smooth round buns. I wouldn't start worrying unduly about their size: just halve the dough, and keep halving it until it's in eight pieces, and use that piece to make two buns. Or just keep the dough as it is, and pinch off pieces slightly larger than a ping pong ball and hope you end up with 16 or thereabouts. Not that it matters.
7. Sit the buns on a baking parchment or Bake-O-Glide-lined baking sheet. Make sure they are quite snug together but not touching. Using the back of an ordinary eating knife, score the tops of the buns with the imprint of a cross. Cover with a teatowel and leave to prove again for about 45 minutes - they should have risen and almost joined up.
8. Brush the buns with an egg wash, and then mix the flour, sugar and water into a smooth, thick paste. Using a teaspoon, dribble two lines over the buns in the indent of the cross, and then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
9. When the hot cross buns come out of the oven, mix the sugar and boiling water together for the glaze, and brush each hot bun to make them sweet and shiny.

Keep Fruits and Vegetables Fresh Longer with Gas Absorber

Lots of fruits and vegetables emit ethylene gas, and this can shorten the life of produce that absorbs it. You can avoid the problem somewhat by storing them separately, but an inexpensive ethylene gas absorber can extend the life of your fruits and veggies without the trouble.

Real Simple offers a list of ethylene-producing produce:

• Apricots
• Avocados
• Bananas
• Cantaloupes
• Honeydew melons
• Kiwis
• Mangoes
• Nectarines
• Papayas
• Peaches
• Pears
• Plums
• Tomatoes

You want to keep those away from other produce, especially if it's ethylene-sensitive. That includes items like apples, asparagus, broccoli, potatoes, watermelons, and more. For your best bet at longevity, however, a gas absorber will do the trick. You can get a three pack for $12, so it won't cost you much to help keep your food lasting longer.

ExtraLife Produce Preserver Disks ($12 for 3)

Mini-Meatloafs Wildly Versatile

Makes: 12

These mini meatloves are best eaten cold, either dunked in mayo, ketchup, brown sauce or mustard, or sliced up and made into sandwiches with the whole fandango of sauces. I sometimes add lingonberry sauce to the mix too. Throw in a gherkin and some pickles and this is lunch nirvana. Don't forget the napkins though.

Ingredients

• 1 lb sausage
  
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• ⅓ cup steak sauce (such as a1 sauce)
• 2 large eggs (beaten)
• 2 teaspoons worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes (or ½ teaspoon table salt)

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6/400ºF.
2. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, mixing really well with your hands or a fork.
3. Divide the mixture into 12 balls, and then shape them into mini loaves.
4. Sit the mini meatloaves on a lined baking sheet with space between each and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.
5. You could eat them hot, but best let them cool and keep in the fridge to slice and eat in sandwiches, or to dip in mayo.

Perfect Pancakes with Bacon

Makes: approx. 20 pancakes

While pancakes with syrup are undeniably a supermom-with-kids breakfast cliche, they are also undeniably good, and in my book that alone argues forcefully for their inclusion here. They are anyway very easy to make, easier than thinner English pancakes or crepes, and it's not hard to get into the weekend habit of mixing them up. They're what I make for my children's breakfast at weekends. I make up half-quantities of the batter (or the full amount on Saturday, saving half of it in a clingfilm-covered jug for Sunday) and let them squeeze golden syrup, rather than the smokier maple, over them; we dispense with the bacon altogether.

Recipe posted by Nigella

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 heaped teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 ¼ cups whole milk

2 large eggs

10 slices bacon (or approx. 100g / 4oz wafer-thin-cut pancetta)

2 teaspoons vegetable oil (for frying bacon)

butter (for frying pancakes)

Instructions

1. Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly while you get on with the rest of the batter and the bacon.

2. In a wide-necked jug, measure out the flour and add the baking powder, sugar and salt. Stir to combine.

3. In another jug, measure out the milk, beat in the eggs and then the slightly cooled butter, and pour this

jug of liquid ingredients into the jug of dry ingredients, whisking as you do so. Or just put everything in

the blender and blitz.

4. In a vegetable oil, fry the bacon (cut into half crosswise) or the pancetta strips until crisp, remove to

kitchen towels and cover with more kitchen towels (not because I'm fat phobic - as if! - but because this

will help them keep their requisite crispiness). Now, heat either a griddle or non-stick frying pan, smear

with a small bit of butter and then start frying. I just pour small amounts straight from the pan (but you

could use an American quarter-cup measure if you prefer) so that you have wiggly circumferenced discs

of about 4cm / 2 inches in diameter. When you see bubbles erupting on the surface, turn the pancakes

over and cook for a couple of minutes, if that, on the other side.

5. Or just use a blini pan (approx. 7cm / 3 inches) and turn when the bubbles break through to the

uncooked surface. There is a Russian saying to the effect that the first pancake is always botched, so be

prepared to sacrifice the initial offering to unceremonious stove-side gobbling.

6. Pile the pancakes onto plates wigwam with pieces of crispy bacon or pancetta and dribble or pour over,

depending on greed and capacity, that clear, brown, woodily fragrant syrup.

7. Makes about 15 pancakes if cooked in a blini pan; or if not, about 25 pancakes the size of jam jar lids.

Pomegranate/Strawberry Eton Mess

This recipe uses bottled fresh pomegranate juice to encourage the strawberries to ooze out their fragrant summery juices. If you're making this with out-of-season strawberries, then you stand a chance of using freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, in which case, sprinkle some seeds on top of this voluptuous mound of meringue and berryspiked cream.

Ingredients

• 4 cups strawberries
  
• 2 teaspoons superfine sugar (or vanilla sugar)
• 2 teaspoons pomegranate juice
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 4 small meringue cookies (from a packet)

Method

1. Hull and chop the strawberries and put into a bowl. Add the sugar and pomegranate juice and leave to macerate while you whip the cream.
2. Whip the cream in a large bowl until thick but still soft.
3. Roughly crumble in 4 meringues nests - you will need chunks for texture, as well as a little fine dust.
4. Take out a ladleful, or about 100g / ½ cup, of the chopped strawberries, and fold the meringued cream and rest of the fruit mixture together.
5. Arrange on four serving plates or glasses, or in a mound, and top each one with some of the remaining macerated strawberries.

More recipes for summer here