Sweet Plum Bun Recipe #GBBO

This week on the Great British Bake Off, saw the contestants creating bakes using sweet dough.  Given that I have so many plums that need using, I thought I'd come up with a way of combining using them up with my entry into this week's Great Bloggers Bake Off hosted by Helen and Jenny.

Sweet Plum Bun Recipe

Ingredients

400g strong white flour

7g sachet fast yeast

25g caster sugar

1 oz melted butter

9 fl oz warm water

400g plums stoned and sliced

3 oz light brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tblspns icing sugar

water to mix

Method

Put the flour, yeast and sugar in a bowl.

Mix in melted butter and warm water to make a dough. Add more flour if necessary.

Knead for 5 minutes then leave in a warm place to rise for 20 mins.

Meanwhile stone and slice plums and mix with sugar and cinnamon.

Turn out dough and roll into a rectangle 12 x 10".

Spread over the sugared fruit.

Roll up tightly like a swiss roll.

Slice thickly and place buns onto a prepared baking tray.

Cover and leave to rise for a further 20 minutes.

Cook in an oven at GM6 for about 20-25 minutes.

Once cooked, leave to cool then drizzle the glace icing over the top.

The buns were rather good with the flavoursome, tart, juicy plums and sweet, glace icing contrasting wonderfully within the sweet dough.  I think my proving probably was a bit lacking which meant I failed to get a really light, airy texture (ooh look at me going all Mary Berry on myself!!) so my buns were a little bit heavier than they could have been but still tasted good.  I think I'll stick to making plum cakes in future as they are so much quicker and easier to make, but it was interesting to try something new.

Oreo Brownie Traybake Recipe

I absolutely love the Great British Bake Off.  I adore Mary Berry with her old lady jeans and silver fox Paul Hollywood with his smouldering, blue eyes.  Throw a whole load of cakes and bakes into the mix and you get must-see TV.

As I've been dieting I have resisited the urge to join in with Jenny and Helen's GBBO linky. Home baking is just too tempting and my shrinking waistline would not forgive me if I suddenly ate an entire trifle or fruit pie.  But this week, with almost 2 stone lost overall, I think I can afford a little indulgence, so I've joined in with the Great Bloggers Bake Off  for Traybake week.  I've come up with a recipe that combines the kids' favourite biscuits with a decadent, but easy to make brownie.  I also added some milk chocolate (from an advent calendar I bought last year for 10p in the sales -use by November 2013.  I bought about 20 of them for just this sort of thing!!) 

I've also linked up with A Mummy Too's Recipe of the week linky.

Oreo Brownie Traybake

Ingredients

7 oz dark chocolate

7 oz butter

11 oz golden caster sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 oz plain flour

3 oz milk chocolate 

8 Oreo biscuits chopped roughly

Method

Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Meanwhile whisk together the sugar, eggs and vanilla extract until thick and creamy.

Stir in melted chocolate mixture.

Fold in flour.

Stir in chocolate and chopped biscuits.

Pour into a foil tray or prepared tin. (approx 8" x 13")

Cook in a pre-heated oven at GM4 for 25 minutes.

Cut into even pieces and sprinkle with icing sugar when cold.

(or grab a slab of it and eat it while it's warm!)

They are rich, moist and have the extra bite and flavour of Oreo biscuits.