Longstraw Sweet Bun Recipe

Longstraw Bakery is Frederica Bullough and James Cartwright . They work with 100% UK stone-milled wheat, oats and rye, sourced from smaller-scale farmers and millers here in the UK — in many cases working directly with Somerset farmers through the South West Grain Network.

We owe our thanks to a number of UK bakers and friends who have shared their own thoughts and techniques on bun doughs and helped us trouble-shoot technical issues as we've developed the recipe. If you ever want to chat bun doughs with us, drop us a line.

Recipe Notes

The tangzhong is non-negotiable. This Chinese method of incorporating pre-gelatinized flour into the bun dough guarantees that your bun dough will be softer, lighter and more supple regardless of what flour you use. You can even make it with wholemeal flour if you're after a bun with a deeper wheat flavour.

This recipe is extremely low in butter, but we primarily use it for cinnamon and cardamom buns, where a LOT of additional butter is incorporated later, but if you want to make your brioche more luxurious then up the butter. Is it really possible to add too much?

You’ll also notice the recipe has a preferment option, which is just us adding scraps from the previous batch back into the next mix. The preferment can be as much as 10% and we do it both to enhance the flavour and reduce waste.

A note on milk. We’ve found that upping the hydration of the dough makes the final bun fluffier, but every flour is different and varies between harvest. We’d recommend hydrating it as much as you can, but build up to it. If you flood the dough with milk, things can go awry.

METHOD

  1. To make the tangzhong, combine flour and milk in a saucepan and heat until the mixture has thickened to a gummy paste. Stir continuously.

  2. Add all first ingredients to your mixing bowl and mix for 6 minutes.

  3. Rest for 10 minutes.

  4. Add second milk and mix for four minutes.

  5. Rest for another 10 minutes.

  6. Add softened, beaten butter either a little at a time, or all at once, depending on how your dough is feeling. Mix for four minutes.

  7. Separate dough out into lightly-greased tubs and prove at 30C for 1.5 hours.

  8. Fridge overnight below 4C.

  9. Next day, divide and shape according to your regular bun format. For our cardamom and cinnamon buns we fold, butter, slice, twist and roll the dough in the Danish kanelsnegle style.

  10. Allow to rise again until a finger imprint springs back halfway. You can retard proving overnight again to suit your baking schedule.

  11. Bake hot and fast to ensure maximum moisture retention and fluffiness. We bake our cinnamon buns for 9 mins at 250C in a deck oven, but all ovens are different, so your baking times will definitely vary.