Choccy Buns

It’s January. As I write this we are only 9 days into the month and I have already completed this month’s baking challenge for Fresh From The Oven.

I’m a good girl I am.

I was nervous about starting this challenge it as it look quite complicated but as Eddie Izzard once said you should go towards things that scare you…unless the things that scare you are big pointy spears at the bottom of a cliff. So here I am: contented and full of chocolate buns with my task ‘in the bag’.

I don’t intend to write the whole recipe in this post as it is quite long and involved, but it is from Richard Bertinet’s fantastic book: Dough. Chele from Chocolate Teapot set the challenge. The general gist is that you make a sort of chocolatey bread swiss roll, filled with chocolate crème pâtissière and chocolate chips. You then slice it up and bake the glazed swirls. I managed to get 15 out of the mix, not 24 as it should have been, so they are quite hefty.

A year or two ago a recipe like this would have floored me, but having gradually increased my kitchen confidence it was okay, once I got my baking mojo together. Next time I plan to make them less chocolatey and more swirly. Until then I have a batch of unproved swirls in the freezer ready for a Weekend treat some other time. I am setting next month’s challenge so it will be a nice easy month for me.

I have realised that I turn to baking when there are other things I ought to be doing, which is why although Friday should be ‘tidy and clean the house for the Weekend’ it ends up as ‘tables groaning with baked goods day’. I may try to set up some sort of trade-off with someone who hates to cook. If they clean my bathroom, I will make them bread. Makes sense to me!

Happy baking everyone.

Update 26th January 2010

It seems like an age since I wrote this and I still haven’t posted it yet. Just a quick note to say that I baked some of those frozen choccy swirls at the Weekend. I took them out of the freezer on Saturday and put them in the fridge, then I left them out on the counter at night then egg washed them and baked them for breakfast. They didn’t rise quite as well as the first batch but they were still really good. If you would like the full recipe Jules has posted it on her Butcher, Baker Blog.