Iced Fingers are one of those things on the Great British Bake Off that I have never heard of. They also sound very odd to me. Who puts icing on bread and then fills it with whipped cream? But Paul Hollywood likes it so why not.
I naturally used Paul’s recipe over on BBC.
First off I made the dough by combining the following in a bowl:
500g bread flour
50g sugar
40g unsalted butter
2 large eggs
14g yeast
2tsp salt
150ml warm milk
140ml water
As I’ve mentioned before, I am all about the bread. This dough came out a bit shaggy:
But I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be that wet so I kneaded in flour until it was a bit stiffer. Paul’s recipe, as always, offers no real hint on what consistency the dough should be, so I went with my gut and chose a firmer dough
Then I let it rise it’s way away
Next was shaping into 12 hot dog shaped buns. I didn’t learn until later that if you shape a bit, let them sit, and then restretch they’ll hold their shape better so I only touched each of these once. As a result they’re a bit wonkily shaped and not all that long
But they all rose well and fine while they proved
And puffed up well in the oven
So I let these cool and mixed together water and powdered sugar to make a thick water icing. This can kind of just be done by gut. You want the result to be like a paste – thicker than elmer’s glue, more rubber cement consistency
And you can just take a spoon and run the icing on top of each bun or dunk them in. I find dunking makes it much harder to keep the amount of icing even.
Then you whip up your whipped cream – adding 2tsp of instant pudding mix helps stabilize the whipped cream so you can eat it later. The stabilized whipped cream is key for me because there are only 2 of us at home and these lasted a few days.
Pipe in the whipped cream and jam and you have what looks to be a maybe.. possibly delicious iced bun:
Turns out these are actually really good. They’re like a baked donut and a delicious treat.
What was difficult:
- Knowing the consistency of the dough
- Shaping the dough into 12, even rolls
What I learned:
- Iced buns are actually delicious
- letting dough set helps make it easier to handle after dividing
Would I make these again?
- Maybe! They’re really good, I just don’t know if they’re something I’ll put the time into again.