Home › Cakes, Puddings, and Pastry › Geneva Buns
Geneva Buns
(Switzerland.) Make a batter of 1 pound of flour, a spoonful of yeast, and 1/2 pint milk. Let it rise for an hour, add 1 beaten egg mixed with 1/2 cup of milk, 2 ounces sugar, and 2 tablespoonfuls of candied peel and currants. Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour, make into rolls, brush with egg, and bake for 20 minutes in hot oven.
A sponge-and-dough sweet bun with no fat in it, which makes the rising times and the oven heat matter more than usual. The dough is soft enough to be scaled and shaped by hand with floured fingers rather than rolled.
- The hinge: keep it a sponge firstThe first hour is a wet sponge of flour, yeast and milk only, with no sugar or egg to slow the yeast. Skipping straight to a single mixed dough gives a flatter, denser bun; the sponge is what carries a fat-free dough.
- "A spoonful of yeast"This is genuinely ambiguous. At this date it could mean liquid brewer's or barm yeast, or a spoon-sized lump of compressed fresh yeast, perhaps around 1/2 oz. For 1 lb of flour, about 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons instant dried yeast, or roughly 1/2 oz fresh, is a workable modern reading.
- Flour and milk quantities1 pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups. Half a pint is 1 cup in American measure and 1 1/4 cups (10 fl oz) in British; start at 1 cup and add the rest only if the sponge is stiffer than a thick batter.
- "Hot oven"Roughly 400-425F. Small enriched buns want a brisk heat so they set and colour in the 20 minutes given; at a moderate 350F they are likely to bake pale and dry.
- Candied peel and currantsTwo tablespoons of each, not two tablespoons total, reads better against a pound of flour. Chop the peel small and soak the currants in warm water for ten minutes so they do not scorch on the surface.
- Egg washOne beaten egg goes into the dough and a second is needed for brushing; the recipe assumes you know this. Thin the wash with a teaspoon of milk or it will streak.
- Yield and timingMakes about a dozen buns of roughly 2 3/4 to 3 oz each. The half-hour second rise is short because the dough is warm and well fermented already; go by the buns holding a light fingerprint rather than by the clock.
- Eating themWith no butter or lard in the dough these stale fast. They are at their best within a few hours, split and buttered, and are worth reheating briefly the next morning.
Geneva buns belong to a family of small enriched yeast buns studded with dried fruit and candied peel that filled British and American bakery windows around 1900 — Bath buns, Chelsea buns, Devonshire splits and the rest. The Swiss attribution here says more about the book than about Geneva: With a Saucepan Over the Sea presents recipes from foreign kitchens filed under their countries, so a bun associated with a Geneva breakfast table would be labelled accordingly. The technique is older than the name. Setting a loose sponge of flour, milk and yeast to work before adding sugar, egg and fruit was a common practice when yeast was unreliable and sugar and fat were understood to slow a dough down. Candied citrus peel and currants were a cheap way to make a plain dough festive, both being shelf-stable pantry goods in a period when fresh fruit out of season was not.