Cream Buns

This past summer, we had some work done on our garden. We bought our house in March 2009, and did some major renovations to it - we basically gutted the whole house, and built it back up from the bare bones. The outcome is a lovely little home that is perfectly us. One thing that we've never really focused on, or put much effort into though was the garden. Which is weird really, when you think about it. I love gardening, it's one of my many hobbies and the main reason we chose to buy this house was because it had such a wonderful garden. 2015 is going to be the year that it is finished, I hope! I have so many plans for vegetables and roses and sweet peas and barbeques and eventually a pizza oven. But, I digress!

So one day this summer, we had one of our friends come over to help us do some of the back breaking, manual labour type stuff. He was such a star; he worked so hard that I felt guilty. We paid him of course, but I wanted to give a bit of extra thanks for the work that he'd done, and my mind turned to baking.



He'd gotten engaged and thrown an engagement party a few months before and I'd baked some cupcakes for their party which had gone down well, so I decided to bake a box for him to take home, so he could put his feet up that night with a cuppa and a bun and recover! These buns are made with a basic victoria sponge, and piped with slightly sweetened whipped vanilla cream. With a Victoria Sponge cake, you first weigh your eggs, and then weigh out your sugar, butter and flour in equal portions to match. I used two medium eggs, which gave me enough mixture to make 9 buns, or alternatively would make a small 6 inch cake. Traditionally, a full cake is made with 3 eggs, but the method is the same. I've shared how to make a traditional victoria sponge cake below, if you'd like the recipe!



Victoria Sponge Cake Buns

Ingredients:

Eggs
Butter
Self raising flour
Sugar

For the cream:

300ml whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp icing sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 180℃

As per note above, weigh out two eggs and make a note of the weight

Weigh out equal measures of the self raising flour, butter and sugar

Cream butter and sugar together in mixing bowl

Beat eggs together, and add a drop at a time into the butter mixture. It's important to add slowly and get a lot of air for a light, fluffy cake. I mix mine in my kitchen aid type appliance. As you're adding the eggs, you might notice that the mixture appears to "split". If this happens, don't worry: the cake might not be quite as light, but it is not "off" and it will not affect the taste

Once all the egg is added to the butter mixture, start folding in the flour, a spoonful at a time until combined

Pour mixture into prepared cake tin, or alternatively lay out 9 bun papers in a baking tray, and divide the mixture between them

Bake in the oven for around 20 minutes, but check regularly. The cake should be golden brown when cooked, will spring back when you gently press the top, and a skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean

Leave to cool

Whip cream with vanilla extract and icing sugar

For the buns:

Once buns are cool, take a sharp knife and carve out a cone in the top of each bun. Reserve these cones (however tempted you are to pop one into your mouth! ;)

Pipe the whipped cream (or alternatively, just dollop it on!), filling the reserve and making a mound on the top of the buns

Pop the cone back onto the top of the bun on top of the cream

Dust with icing sugar, if required

For a cake:

Slice cake lengthwise in two

Spread a thin layer of jam onto the bottom of the cake

Spread the whipped cream over the jam layer

place the top half of the cake back on

Dust with icing sugar, if required