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!!!
Awwwwwwww ..... she's adorable!!!! Coffee for babies?! She must've been a real hyper baby :D
ReplyDeleteThanks, Helen, for sharing this recipe and the photo ... esp the photo ... awwww all over again!
how nice is the litle bay! an good cookies also! congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this recipe, am off to buy some Camp. I always preferred Camp when I was younger, even though everyone else was hooked on Maxwell House.
ReplyDelete:cringe: Still - it's a mother's job to embarrass their kids... Right ?
ReplyDeleteMum - I haven't eaten these in YEARS. Certainley not in the last 10. I think you should have posted some to me. Saying that - they'd probably have arrived in crumbs like a few of the "samplers" I've posted to you over the years !