A Happy New Year to all of you who follow my blog, although you had probably given up on me as it has been so long since I last posted. I am not usually one to make resolutions at New Year but this year I hope to be more regular in my posting on the blog so here we go.
New Year/Hogmanay in Scotland is celebrated with more gusto than Christmas and I guess some of that has stayed with me despite now being an Australian. For the Christmas/New Year celebrations I decided to make a Black Bun this year. I remember the bun my mum used to make so I decided to use her recipe.
You can see that I have done the conversions to the metric weights.
Black bun was supposedly the original Twelfth Night cake eaten in Scotland, before it became known as Scotch Christmas bun during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was originally a spiced fruit mixture encased in bread dough but the dough gradually gave way to a lighter shortcrust pastry case. The name black bun seems to have been used from the late 1920s. You can find more information on the history of the black bun here.
The pastry in my back bun is quite firm and the fruit mixture is quite moist. There is not much left now the festive season is almost over.
