Simple Blackberry Iced Finger Buns (from scratch)

These blackberry iced finger buns are the bomb. Or is it da bomb. Or, am I really showing my age? Apparently so. The Urban Dictionary confirms: an old but cool way of saying something’s awesome. Old but cool? I am liking the sound of that. Anyway, I digress. However you describe them, they are so good. Really good.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: my bread machine has revolutionised my life. I don’t like kneading bread (all that pounding feels so strenuous at times). So to throw a load of ingredients in, then wait for the ready pummeled dough to be produced, is something I really appreciate.

I have a to-go recipe for bread dough. It’s the same whether it’s for naan bread, sticky caramel buns or pizza crust. I just tweak it here and there to add a little more sweetness, garlic or spices. For these blackberry iced finger buns, I just added a touch of nutmeg and some vanilla sugar.

Iced finger buns are a favourite in the UK. Who knew that pretty much regular bread could taste so delicious with a dollop of sweet icing on top? It’s true. The icing for this recipe is made with blackberry juice and icing sugar, plus a touch of water. Nothing more difficult than that. You don’t need to add any blackberry juice though; they taste just as good with a classic icing.

Please note: a recipe for buns with berry icing originally appeared on my old blog, The Culinary Jumble. If you’ve arrived at this recipe, apart from the shape, the only difference is that these buns don’t have any cream or jam.

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Simple Blackberry Iced Finger Buns (from scratch)

Course Snack

Cuisine British

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Bread machine 1 hour

Equipment

• Bread Machine

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 250ml milk
• 50g butter
• 380g spelt flour (see note 1)
• 7g dried yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt

Icing

• 200g icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons blackberry juice (see note 2)
• water (as much needed to make a thick paste)

Instructions

Dough

• Add all of the ingredients (wet then dry) for the dough into your bread maker. Set the machine to make the dough (only).
• Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
• Remove the ready dough from the machine and place on a floured surface (the dough will be very sticky - it's supposed to be). Work some flour into the dough until you can work with it. Then, divide into around 12-14 pieces of around the same weight.
• Roll each piece into a "hot dog roll" shape of around 10cm and place on a large baking tray lined with grease proof paper. The buns should be have a space of around 2cm between them (when they bake and merge together, it makes for a softer bread).
• Bake for 10 minutes, just until the tops are nice and brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Icing

• Combine the blackberry juice with the icing sugar and then gradually add as much water as necessary to make a thick paste. If you are not using blackberry juice, just use more water. Spread over the finger buns. Keep covered until ready to eat. Enjoy!

Notes

The instructions above are for a bread machine. Results can't be guaranteed if you make the buns by hand.

 

 

1. If you'd like to use regular or bread flour, use 400g instead of the 380g mentioned
2. I made some homemade blackberry jam and strained off some juice. If you'd like to see what I did, take a look at my recipe for Blackberry Skillet Buns and scroll down to the instructions for the filling. You could also use a little food colouring and add it to the icing (or even use lemon, orange or any other flavour).
3.  I use grams in my recipes as weighing ingredients is the most accurate method. However, if cups are your thing, you can convert my measurements at Cook it Simply.