Hello everyone!
This is not Sarah-Jane blogging, but ME - I'm her mum, Helen. I hope you don't mind the intrusion, but I'm 'helping' out today.
It's many years since Sarah-Jane baked her first fairy cakes and made chocolate rice crispies and smartie marshmallows with me and she's come a long way since then. Now it is me who very much follows HER baking and asks HER advice!
I have been thinking recently of an old family recipe we all enjoyed, so I 'dug it out'.
Coffee Buns.
They are more of a sort of soft biscuit, and if, like me, you love coffee - you should love Coffee Buns!
BUT - horror of horror, this old recipe was all in imperial - even the oven temperature!
The 'secret ingredient' is 'Camp Coffee' which is a liquid coffee with chicory, which you can buy in any supermarket. If you don't have any, you can always make some strong liquid coffee to add instead.
Ingredients
1/2 lb marg (I used 250g)
2 cups of demerara sugar
2 eggs
1 tablesp Camp Coffee (the recipe said 2, but was changed to 1 - or maybe it was a 1 changed to 2....
1 lb (500g) self raising flour so I just used 1.1/2 tblsp)
1/2 lb currants (250g)
First, I washed and soaked the currents for a little while, so they wouldn't turn out like bits of grit.
Cream the marg and sugar
Whisk the egg (save a little for glazing), and add with the coffee to the mixture
Stir in the sifted flour and the currants
Roll into balls the size of a large walnut (I got 30) and space them out on your baking trays (prob.2).
I lined my trays (the grill pans, actually - nice and big) with my wonderful plain black silicone mats from www.siliconemoulds.com, and very lightly oiled them. Just overlap them to cover the trays. (They worked a treat, as usual, so I only had the mats to wipe and no trays to wash up.)
Slightly flatten, and brush the tops with egg before putting into the pre-heated oven.
This old recipe said 375deg (old money) or 190deg C, and I thought that looked rather on the hot side, which probably explains how my mum often burned them.
Here's a handy conversion chart
| Fahrenheit | Celcius | Gas Mark |
| 250°F | 120°C | Gas Mark ½ |
| 275°F | 135°C | Gas Mark 1 |
| 300°F | 149°C | Gas Mark 2 |
| 325°F | 162°C | Gas Mark 3 |
| 350°F | 176°C | Gas Mark 4 |
| 375°F | 190°C | Gas Mark 5 |
| 400°F | 204°C | Gas Mark 6 |
| 425°F | 218°C | Gas Mark 7 |
| 450°F | 232°C | Gas Mark 8 |
| 475°F | 246°C | Gas Mark 9 |
| 500°F | 260°C | Gas Mark 10 |
I decided that 160/170deg would be better, but as my oven control panel is decidedly difficult to read (even with my specs on and standing on a chair!), I confess I guessed where to turn the dial and set the timer for the required 30 mins.
They turned out just as good as I remembered them! Delicious!
Sarah-Jane
I seem to remember Sarah-Jane enjoyed Coffee Buns too!
I seem to remember Sarah-Jane enjoyed Coffee Buns too!
.........and something tells me now that I'm in for BIG trouble!!!
