Adapted from a recipe in Waitrose Food Illustrated March 2008

Ingredients

Most of these are available at True Food markets

• 350g organic white bread flour
• 100g organic spelt flour
• 14g dried active yeast
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 2 tbsp organic caster sugar
• 150g mixed dried fruit (I used 60g organic raisins, 50g organic peel and 40g organic sultanas
• 200ml organic semi-skimmed milk
• 75g organic butter
• 2 organic free-range eggs

For the decoration

• 50g organic plain flour
• 1tbsp organic sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp organic clear honey

Makes 12. Preparation 30 minutes, plus 1 hour 20 minutes rising. Cooking 20 – 25 minutes.

Method

1. Melt the butter and leave to cool
2. Mix the flours, yeast, salt, spice and sugar in a large bowl
3. Stir in the dried fruit
   
4. Warm the milk and beat the eggs
5. Make a hole in the flour mixture and pour in the butter, eggs and half the milk
6. Stir together, adding more of the milk as required to form a dough – you’ll probably end up with your hands in there to get it all mixed into one soft ball of dough
7. Tip out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 – 15 minutes – great way to get rid of some tension!
8. Put it back into the bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm to rise for an hour. It should double in size.
9. Put the oven on to heat to 220C or gas mark 7.
10. Divide the dough into 12 equal lumps and form into bun shapes. Put a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and arrange the buns on top. Cover and leave somewhere draft-free to prove (rise) for 20 minutes
11. In the meantime, mix the plain flour, sunflower oil and 3 tbsp cold water to make a runny paste
12. Once the buns have risen, pipe the paste into crosses on the top of the buns. If you don’t have a piping bag, cut the corner off a clean plastic bag and use that.
13. Bake for 5 minutes, then turn the over down to 180 C / gas mark 4 for 15 – 20 minutes, until the buns are golden
14. Make a glaze by mixing the honey with 1 tbsp boiling water and brush this over the warm buns. This can be messy, so I put the buns on a wire rack to cool and positioned that over the used parchment paper so that it caught the drips from the glaze.
15. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy!