day 15

Hot cross buns! I love hot cross buns. No bakeries open this Easter so it's 'do it yourself' or miss out.
Fortunately, I purchased a supposedly new breadmaker at the school garage sale for a song several years back but have been a very intermittent bread maker since.  Out of the blue, I made a loaf of fruit bread several weeks prior to lockdown and it was rather doughy, sending me off in search of a remedy resulting in the purchase of some bread improver and gluten flour. My next attempt included a couple of tablespoons of both of these ingredients and voila! - perfect fruit bread!
So, come Easter Friday I made a batch of hot cross buns using the Chelsea Sugar breadmaker recipe but added the milk powder, gluten flour and bread improver in my breadmaker version of the recipe.
The results were almost perfect - although I cooked then for less time than the recipe said, they were a bit overdone on top. Note to self - lower the oven temperature, place lower in the oven, don't brush with anything before cooking and cover with a tea towel as soon as removing from the oven to stop them going crusty. But the bread texture was absolutely perfect! They were the bomb!

However, I would love to try the tangzhong method of bread making. I've read about this over the years and am keen to give it a go. So I did some googling and found a variety of versions so this is on my to-do list, either again while in lockdown or at least next Easter.

Version 1.     Version 2

day 13

Feijoas are big at my place at the moment. Feijoa jam, feijoa chutney, feijoa crumble, feijoas with yogurt. They are so much part of the autumn feel in NZ. Apparently native to South America but related to the Pohutukawa tree, they are a fruit mostly loved but Kiwis.

day 6

An autumn tradition is pear and ginger cake when my pears ripen. When you make a cake only once a year, there's little room for experimentation. However, I have decided that this cake would be improved by adding fresh ginger to it to make it more gingery. I've already doubled the ginger spice but it still does not meet my need for a real ginger hit. Next year? Or should I break the rules and make it again? A month in lockdown, all rules are up for breaking.
PS. it's an Annabelle Langbein recipe - Sticky date cake which just happens to have pears and ginger in it.

day 3

People in my neighbourhood are obeying 'the rules'. I heard the mailman on his little scooter and someone open their letterbox. That was about it today. The odd car goes down the road but being on a back section I hardly hear them. The very occasional siren - these used to be constant. Is this practice for living at the beach in a small quiet community? Not complaining.
So I made fruit bread - practising for Easter. Just as nice and much less fluffing about than hot cross buns. Delicious! The addition of gluten flour and bread improver appears to have resolved the 'doughy' issue from the last loaf.