Carrot Cake Swirl Buns

These Carrot Cake Swirl Buns are perfect for Easter.

I used to work with a chap that refused to eat carrot cake.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like the taste it’s just that in his mind, carrots were entirely savoury and don’t belong in cake.  No matter how hard I tried to convince him otherwise he just couldn’t do it.

I find it fascinating the way we can be about food.  Allergies and intolerances aside I think we owe a lot of our food habits to our childhoods. For instance I don’t like custard and this is purely down to being forced to eat the lumpy bright yellow, sweetly sickening stuff with a skin on top at school dinners, although I know some people who loved it back then and still love it now.

I think I have quite a simple palette.  I definitely have a safe zone when it comes to cooking and often take a while to adopt new flavours but I’ll happily experiment, as long as The Viking doesn’t mind the odd disaster or two.

I’ll try anything once as long as it’s not endangered or poisonous but the thought of refusing something because my brain won’t compute doesn’t really make sense to me. Mostly because whatever it is usually in my mouth before my brain knows what’s happening.

For the buns:

• 500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 30g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 7g (1 teaspoon or 1 packet) fast-action dried yeast
• 300ml whole milk
• 75g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
• the zest of 1 orange
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 1 large free-range egg

For the filling:

• 100g unsalted butter, very soft or at room temperature
• 100g light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon mixed spice
• 2 medium carrots – finely grated
• the zest of 1 orange
• 50g walnuts – roughly chopped
• 50g desiccated coconut
• 50g almond slivers (plus some for decorating)

 For the glaze:

• 150g cream cheese
• 2 or 3 tablespoons icing sugar
• The juice of half and orange

Method:

Start with the dough – put the flour, caster sugar, salt and yeast into a large bowl and set aside. Put the milk, butter, clementine zest and mixed spice into a small saucepan and cook over a low-medium heat until all the butter has melted. Set aside until just lukewarm.

Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, then pour in the milk mixture and add the egg. Mix with your hands to form a rough, soft dough. Tip out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for about 10-15 minutes until smooth and elastic. (I did this in my stand mixer, using the dough hook on low speed for 10 minutes.) then put the dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover with cling film. Leave it to rise for about 1-1½ hours or until it has doubled in size.

Meanwhile make the carrot cake filling by lightly beating the butter, mixed spice and brown sugar until you have a rough paste, then fold in half the grated carrots.

Once the dough is risen, tip it out onto a lightly floured work surface and use a rolling pin to roll into a 40cm x 50cm rectangle. Using a spoon or spatula, spread the mixed spice butter in an even layer across the entire surface of the dough, then sprinkle the remaining carrots, almond slivers and walnuts over the top.

Roll up the dough into a cylinder along the long edge, keeping the spiral tight. Using a sharp knife, cut into 6 fat even slices.

Grease and line a baking tin roughly 20cm x 3cm and arrange the buns snugly in the base. Cover the tin with cling film, set aside and allow the buns to prove for 45-60 minutes until risen and puffy.

While the buns are proving, heat the oven to 180°C / 356F  Once proved, bake the buns for 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown.

While the buns are baking, prepare the glaze: put the ingredients into a bowl and mix well until you have a loose frosting mixture.

Remove the buns from the oven and let them sit for 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. Then spread the frosting over the top of each bun in a swirling pattern.

For more sweet and savoury bun recipes, check these out on Dom in the Kitchen.

Eat and of course, Enjoy!