Such a simple recipe, but leave plenty of time for proving! You also get a little added workout with all the kneading! Unless you have a mixer with a dough hook, then it’s super easy! But if not, stick on some tunes, roll up your sleeves and work those guns. This one is so worth the little bit of extra effort. And if you have a little helper, get them involved in the kneading too!
These are best warm and eaten quickly in one sitting – you’ll need 11 friends… or maybe just 3…
Chocolate Chelsea Buns
You’ll need some sort of high sided baking tray – a 9 inch brownie pan will do, but any large-ish pan with high sides will do nicely.
Makes 12
Ingredients
350g plain flour (use strong flour if you have it, but normal plain flour’s fine too)
50g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
50g melted butter
1 egg, beaten
150ml warm milk
Jar of chocolate spread
100g chunks of dark chocolate
Method
- Start with two bowls. Into one pop the flour, sugar, salt and yeast and give it a mix.
- Into the other, mix the melted butter, beaten egg and milk. Then add this to the flour mix and combine until the ingredients form a dough. You can start mixing with a spoon, but I usually do this with my hands; squidge it and squodge it until it all comes together in a nice ball.
- Once it looks dough-like, it needs to be kneaded! You can do this in your mixer with a dough hook, or manually! You’ll need a clean, floured surface to work on if you do it wth your hands. Knead for 5-10 minutes until it’s nice and smooth. Like I said, stick on some music and knead to the beat. If you’re using a mixer, that’s 5-10 minutes ‘kitchen-dancing’ for you!
- Grab a rolling pin, scatter some flour on a surface and roll out your dough into a rectangle, about 25 x 35cm. It needs to be no more than a few millimetres fat – but not too skinny!! (5mm is absolute max.)
- Leave a gap at one of the long edges, then spread a nice layer of chocolate spread over the dough and sprinkle over the chocolate chunks. At this point, you could add chopped hazelnuts, walnuts, a mixture of white, milk and dark chocolate chunks – whatever you fancy!
- Brush the edge you left the gap with water and roll the dough up to this edge. Press it down to seal into a lovely rolled up sausage.
- Cut the sausage into 12 equal pieces.
- Line your pan with baking paper or silicone sheets so the buns don’t stick.
- Put each of the 12 pieces on its side in the pan so you can see its spirally pattern.
- Cover the pan with a damp tea towel and pop in a lovely warm, snuggly place for about an hour (this does not include ‘in your bed’, however snuggly it may be). The dough should have happily doubled in size. If not, leave for a bit longer.
- Whilst the buns are proving, preheat your oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas mark 6.
- Once you’re happy your little buns are puffy enough, pop them in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden and firm. Keep an eye on them – they may need more or less time.
- Take them out of the oven and let them cool in their tin for 5 minutes. Then transfer them, in one big happy family of buns, to a cooling rack.
Tear apart and eat immediately!! You can drizzle over melted chocolate if you have the patience, but they’re just super delicious as they are.
I even warm them up the following day – a few minutes in an oven if you’ve got the dinner on, or a few seconds in the microwave, if not. A perfect autumnal treat.
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Adapted from ‘Good to Know’ website.
