Easter baking

This Easter, I had the pleasure of visiting Raymond Island, in the Victorian Gipsland Lakes area.  I had planned to make hot cross buns over the weekend, and so was initially really disappointed that I wouldn't be at home.  Then I remembered my TM carry bag, and decided to take my trusty TM down to Victoria, along with all the ingredients for the buns.

What a wonderfully easy way to make hot cross buns!  It was so convenient being able to heat the milk for the yeast.  I had previously measured all the dried ingredients (except the yeast) into a single container, so just tipped it all in at the appropriate time. 

The only thing that didn't go right was the incorporation of the dried fruit into the kneaded dough.  I followed the recipe in the EDC and added the sultanas after kneading.  The TM made a funny squeaking noise, but I figured that was what it was supposed to do.  When I tipped the dough out of the bowl, a lot of the sultanas fell out separately.  My friend who I was staying with decided to knead the sultanas in by hand which worked well.

The buns tasted so good, I might just have to make some more for my family (who didn't get any of the first batch) and pretend it's still easter!

I wanted to give my hosts a gift, so the night before going to Victoria, I decided to bake the 30 second cookies from the EDC.  What a wonderfully easy way to make biscuits!  I have horible memories of high school home economics classes, trying to cream the butter and sugar, and remembered it taking for ever!

I wasn't really sure whether the dough was mixed properly after the prescribed kneading time, as there was still some flour left in the bowl, and the dough was really crumbly.  I gave it a few more seconds, and everything seemed fine.

The hardest thing was making the little balls for the biscuits, as the dough was crumbly.  My attempts to rol the dough into balls was unsuccessful, so I sort of squashed it together, and it worked.  They were delicious too, and were very well received by my hosts.  The other good thing was that I discovered that I could preheat my convection microwave which I used to cook the biscuits.

While I was in Victoria, I went to a boot sale, and bought something called a Princess Cookie Maker, which seems to be some sort of cookie press with little disks at the bottom for the dough to go through. Maybe I'll try this next time, rather than trying to squash little balls.