Simple Blackberry Iced Finger Buns (from scratch)
Ingredients
Dough (see note 1)
- 1 egg
- 250ml (1 cup) milk
- 50g (3½ tbs) butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 400-450g (3⅓ - 3¾ cups) spelt flour (see note 2)
- 7g (2 tsp) dried yeast (see note 3)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
Icing
- 200g (7 oz) icing / confectioner's sugar
- 30g (1 oz) blackberries (see note 4)
Instructions
DOUGH
Bread Machine:
- Add the egg, milk, butter and vanilla to your bread machine pan. Then add 400g (3⅓ cups) of flour, and the remaining dough ingredients, taking care to keep the yeast and salt separate as much as possible. Set your machine to make dough.
- On a very well-floured surface (the dough will be very sticky) work in just as much flour as you need to make a soft, pliable, but still a little tacky, dough.
Stand Mixer:
- Add the egg, milk, butter and vanilla to your stand mixer bowl, and mix together. If the butter is straight out of the fridge, it won't combine with the other wet ingredients too much, but that's okay.
- Add 450g (3¾cups) of flour, and the remaining ingredients. The dough should be sticky, but if you need more flour, just add a little at a time. Be careful: too much flour will result in dry bread.
- Switch to a dough hook (if you have one) and allow the mixer to knead the dough for around 10 minutes, just until soft. The dough will still feel a little tacky to the touch, but will be able to slowly drop off the hook.
- Cover the dough and leave to proof (until it has doubled in size - usually about an hour).
- When the dough is ready, knock it back, and on a floured surface, form into a rough ball.
For both methods:
- Pre-heat the oven to 200°C / 400℉. Line a large baking tray with baking paper.
- Divide the dough into 12-14 pieces of roughly the same weight.
- Roll each piece into a "hot dog roll" shape of around 10cm / 4".
- Place on a large baking tray lined with grease proof paper. Make two lines of buns (see my pictures above), giving them 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:
- Heat the blackberries in a small pan for a couple of minutes (just until they start to soften).
- Strain the berries through a sieve until you have around 2 tablespoons of juice.
- Add as much icing sugar as needed to make a thick paste. Pour or spread over the buns. Enjoy with a cup of tea!
Notes
- I have made the dough using both a stand mixer and bread machine with identical results. I have not made the dough by hand, but I see no reason why you couldn't do so!
- You can use spelt or regular flour for this recipe (just use the same amount).
- In Sweden we have something called dried yeast. It is used both in warm liquid and allowed to proof, and it is also added directly to flour. I am aware that the US has two options for dried yeast, and I believe dry active yeast is the most similar to our dried yeast.
- You can use fresh or frozen blackberries. If using fresh, add one tablespoon of water to the pan when heating. It is possible to use raspberries (or another kind of berry), although this will naturally affect the colour of the icing.