Found the time
By taking a bit of time here and a little bit of time there and allowing a long slow rise I managed to get the orange hot cross buns done today.
I had doubts about dissolving the yeast in the orange juice since I was afraid that the yeast would be overwhelmed by the sugar. I started out with 1 teaspoon of yeast in 1/4 cup orange juice. If the yeast had failed to bubble I would have started again with plain warm water. The yeast bubbled quite nicely and I mixed the rest of the orange juice into the yeast, and then 2 cups white whole wheat flour to make a soft sponge. I have a picture of an astonishingly orange sponge.
All my bread recipes are transformed into sponge type recipe if they aren't that way to start with. The book that started me using sponges for breads was From A Baker's Kitchen By Gail Sher. Other books dealing with that subject are The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book by Laurel Robertson and Carol Flinders and Godfrey Bronwen, and the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook by Brinna Sands.
The dough turned out amazingly orange and disgustingly sticky. The orange zest was all the thin orange layer of a navel orange. The rest of the orange was very tasty and made a nice post lunch snack. Maybe next time I'll try cutting up the whole orange peel into very small pieces. Why do recipes just ask for the zest instead of the whole peel?
Done isn't quite the right word. 32 little tiny buns are sitting on a 1/2 sheet pan in my proofing box. It can rise overnight and be baked tomorrow.
This only made 3 lbs of dough as oppose to recipes using 8 lbs of flour that normally make 4 1/2 lbs or so.
The recipe said to make 22 buns which is a strange number, it would be easier to divide the dough into 24 pieces. My scale is analog and the measurements are in 2 ounce divisions, so I normally start by cutting the dough into halves and then fourths and eighths. After that last stage I could dived the last part into thirds for 24 but how does anyone get 22.
I had doubts about dissolving the yeast in the orange juice since I was afraid that the yeast would be overwhelmed by the sugar. I started out with 1 teaspoon of yeast in 1/4 cup orange juice. If the yeast had failed to bubble I would have started again with plain warm water. The yeast bubbled quite nicely and I mixed the rest of the orange juice into the yeast, and then 2 cups white whole wheat flour to make a soft sponge. I have a picture of an astonishingly orange sponge.
All my bread recipes are transformed into sponge type recipe if they aren't that way to start with. The book that started me using sponges for breads was From A Baker's Kitchen By Gail Sher. Other books dealing with that subject are The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book by Laurel Robertson and Carol Flinders and Godfrey Bronwen, and the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook by Brinna Sands.
The dough turned out amazingly orange and disgustingly sticky. The orange zest was all the thin orange layer of a navel orange. The rest of the orange was very tasty and made a nice post lunch snack. Maybe next time I'll try cutting up the whole orange peel into very small pieces. Why do recipes just ask for the zest instead of the whole peel?
Done isn't quite the right word. 32 little tiny buns are sitting on a 1/2 sheet pan in my proofing box. It can rise overnight and be baked tomorrow.
This only made 3 lbs of dough as oppose to recipes using 8 lbs of flour that normally make 4 1/2 lbs or so.
The recipe said to make 22 buns which is a strange number, it would be easier to divide the dough into 24 pieces. My scale is analog and the measurements are in 2 ounce divisions, so I normally start by cutting the dough into halves and then fourths and eighths. After that last stage I could dived the last part into thirds for 24 but how does anyone get 22.