Currant Buns
1 pound white-bread flour, or whole-wheat flour, or part whole-wheat 1 cup and 2 tablespoons lukewarm water 1 cake compressed yeast 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/3 cup sugar 3 tablespoons cooking oil 3/4 cup dried currants Look over the currants, and wash them thoroughly. Mix them with the liquids, and proceed to make the dough as in making bread. Knead thoroughly and proceed as in making plain buns.
A stiff, lightly sweetened yeast dough enriched with oil rather than butter. The original leans on the book's earlier bread and plain-bun entries, so the missing details are the ones worth filling in.
- The currants are not fresh fruitDried currants here are Zante currants, the small dried grapes sold in the baking aisle, not fresh red or black currants. Substituting fresh berries will wreck the dough.
- Wash, then dryWashing removes the dusting of flour and grit older packages carried. Modern currants are cleaner, but if you do rinse them, spread them on a towel and blot well, since wet fruit throws off a dough this dry.
- One cake of yeastA cake of compressed yeast was about 0.6 oz fresh yeast, equivalent to roughly 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry or instant yeast, one standard modern packet.
- Flour by weightOne pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups of white bread flour, slightly more if whole wheat. With 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of water this is a firm dough at roughly 60 percent hydration; whole wheat will drink more, so hold back a tablespoon or two of flour rather than adding water blind.
- Sugar and salt placementThe recipe only says to mix the currants with the liquids, leaving the sugar and salt unplaced; simplest is to dissolve them in the lukewarm water with the yeast. Water should be about 100-110F, no hotter.
- Rising and shapingExpect about 1 to 1 1/2 hours for the first rise, then divide into 12 to 15 pieces, round them, and let them prove on a lined sheet until nearly doubled, 30 to 45 minutes.
- OvenBake at 400F for 15 to 20 minutes, until the buns sound hollow and read about 195F inside. Currants on the surface scorch easily, so tuck any that protrude back into the dough when shaping.
- YieldTwelve to fifteen buns, best the day they are baked; they stale quickly because the only fat is 3 tablespoons of oil.