Iced buns

Read the full method, check the stated equipment and prepare every listed ingredient. Keep dough, filling, wash, topping and handling groups separate. Weigh edible parts as described in the ingredient list.

Mix dough flour, instant yeast, dough sugar, dough salt, dough liquid and dough egg if listed. Knead on the dough hook for about 5 minutes, keeping dough butter separate initially.

Add dough butter gradually and knead another 5–8 minutes until smooth and stretchy. Pause if warm or greasy. Add optional extra dough milk only if unusually stiff.

Cover in a lightly greased bowl and leave 1–2 hours at 22–26°C until roughly doubled and aerated; a cooler kitchen needs longer.

Divide equally according to yield, round loosely and cover.

Rest for 10 minutes.

Shape sealed cylinders about 12 cm long and arrange seam down with 2–3 cm gaps on the lined tray. Cover.

Allow 45–90 minutes; the timer is an estimate. Buns should be puffy and slow to spring back from a gentle press. Begin heating the oven near the end of proofing.

Heat the oven to 170°C fan.

Allow about 15 minutes of heating in total and check that the oven has reached 170°C fan.

Continue covered until ready. Buns should be puffy and slow to spring back from a gentle press.

Check the oven has reached the stated setting and carefully put in the prepared tray or tin.

Bake at 190°C conventional / 170°C fan for 15–20 minutes until light golden and about 92–94°C inside.

Take the bake out of the oven and set it on a heatproof surface.

Cool completely on a rack before icing.

Mix icing sugar, icing vanilla, optional icing colour and enough icing water for a thick coating. Spread a strip over each cold bun without running down the sides.

Let icing set for 30 minutes.