In development

Things are rolling with the market thing and I have a few more under my belt. It's a lot of fun and while I have some solid produce, I need to add something different to my offering. 

The last couple of weekends have been used for development. I've been trying out some new flavours and some bakes I've not done before. Some have worked out well and I'm happy to produce them for my next market. Some were a bit of a car crash. In fact one looked like the aftermath of one. 


On the success pile is the drunk rum golden raisin twist buns. I had some rum left over and I thought I'd drown a tub of raisins. The result... A rich bun with that hint of Caribbean liquor.

While it worked out well I am a bit hesitant to sell alcoholic buns. Tell me I'm wrong. If I take this forward I'll ditch the rum and keep the raisins. 

My second experiment was something I've wanted to do for a while. 

Being an Indian tea is a huge part of my life. I can distinctly remember drinking rich milky tea as a child, when I should probably have been sticking to milk. 

For this infusion I wanted to marry tea with another bun. Having read around the net there seemed to be two main ways of going about it.

Firstly I opted for Assam tea leaves. It seemed to have just the punchy strength I would need to carry through the bake. 

The second step was to work out how to get the tea into the buns. The first, and most logical step, seemed to be to make tea and just add it to my bun recipe. 

I infused scolded milk with the tea and strained it into the flour mixture. While this method gave the buns the look of tea, it didn't give it the taste. 

The second method was to infuse melted butter with tea. I've read a few blogs on this and the authors assured this was the best way to infuse the taste of tea into a mix. It didn't do anything. The butter didn't take the flavour or colour. 

That was a bust. If anyone has any ideas please do post them below. 

Aside from not getting the flavour of tea I did want to transport people back to the backstreets of Jalandhar, sipping hot chai on the back of a three-wheeler. 

The best way to do that is to bring the chai masala flavour into the bun. This was done by combining the cinnamon butter filling with chai masala. Easy as. 

The trick is to get the balance just right. Chai masala get be brutally strong and can destroy your throat. I wanted just the right amount to bring out the masala along with the cinnamon and cardamom. 

The ultimate taste test was to give it to my dad, and he gave it more than two thumbs up, which is huge for an Indian. 

This will be a new addition to the menu. Hopefully it'll go down with customer as well as it has done at home. 

Here's where we come to the big fail of development. I wanted to bake a lovely light brunch bread, but lift it a little with a different taste. 

I opted for a plaited milk loaf, but to give it that difference I threw in some frozen berries. 

While the dough itself looked fantastic, I can't tell how well it tasted as it didn't bake through. The berries ruined the loaf. Well I ruined it with the addition of berries.

The loaves were chucked and it was a bit of a downer, but that's what development is for. 

I have a few new additions I'm happy to bake at my next market. Hopefully you'll be there. 

I will be at the Northfields Night Market on Saturday 15 March.