My Monday Baking: Sweet Buns "Arrufadas de Coimbra"

Hello you!

It has been a long time since I last posted my baking adventures... Since Easter is arriving, I wanted to try some sweet buns recipes. So I ventured and I attempted a new recipe, Coimbra's sweet buns. These sweet buns are based on a Portuguese recipe, their original name are "Arrufadas de Coimbra" and are very typical for Easter. It has been a long time since I last had "arrufadas",  these are really hard to come by in the U.K. (actually,  impossible!). And since I had no idea how to bake these, I did what anyone does, googled a recipe and .... lets bake!

I found a recipe at Doces Regionais ,  and adapted it. I did not used the original measurements that that site suggested. I felt that using 2000g of flour would be a bit too much! Considering that most probably I would find myself having a failed first attempt (which I actually did), I did not wanted to waste so much. Also, if you feel like trying this receipt, bear in mind that it will take a long time to actually bake these buns, as they have to be proofed for a whole night. 

These are the ingredients I used:

650 g flour

4 eggs

20g fresh yeast

100g butter

165g caster sugar

salt

And a picture of my sweet buns looks! Yum!

And the method....:

Mix the flour, sugar and a bit of salt.  I also had to activate the yeast before adding it to the flour mixture. I had to use warm water,  sugar and mix it with the yeast.  Then, I had to wait until there is foam on top of the liquid mixture and that's it, my yeast is active! Then mix it with the previously prepared flour mixture, add the melted butter, eggs and mix it for 10 min.

Now it's time for the troublesome kneading stage... The dough is very sticky, so kneading it was very difficult. I followed this video, which had some good pointers:

After the dough is kneaded, I left it to proof during the night.  I covered the dough with cling film in a large bowl and waited for the morning to arrive. Yes, it is a very long proofing stage.

But my dough more than doubled the size...!

After the proofing stage I divided the dough in eight small dough balls and placed them in an oven tray and proofed for another 30min. Afterwards, I brushed the buns with egg yolk and sprinkled with both icing and caster sugar. I preheated the oven to 200C, and placed my sweet buns in the oven. After 30min, your sweet buns are ready! Yummy sweet buns ready for breakfast!

I am thoroughly proud of how these sweet buns turned out. Bear in mind  though, that this is a second attempt...

In a first attempt I did not used fresh yeast but regular dry yeast. It did not work for me, the dough did not rise once proofed. Heres a photo of my first attempt at these sweet buns and the second more successful bash:

The difference between the buns texture is pretty obvious... My first attempt resulted in very hard buns. Not fluffy and tasty as my second try. I am not sure what went wrong with me using the dry yeast, but I could see that during my kneading stage that the dough was not changing and becoming elastic, the gluten was not activated. It worked with the fresh yeast though!

I will be defenitely baking these again as these are really tasty yummy! And both kidos loved them... So kids' approved sweet buns!

Did you try any new recipes for Easter?