Coconut and Orange is a great combination. These rolls are lightly enriched with milk, egg and sugar to give a soft and slightly sweet result. Good anytime, but especially nice at breakfast with butter, jam, marmalade and maybe some cream cheese.

Makes: 10 – 12 rolls

Level: Easy

Time: 2½ hours including both proving times

Need: Baking trays & scales. I use a stand mixer, but they can be made by hand.

Ingredients

450g strong white flour
50g – 75g desiccated coconut
30g caster sugar
10g salt
An Orange (zest and juice)
7g sachet of instant yeast
360ml lukewarm liquid (Juice from the orange then half water, half milk to make up the total amount needed.)
1 egg, beaten (half in the mixture, half to glaze)

Method

1. Tip the flour, desiccated coconut, sugar, salt and orange zest into a (stand mixer) bowl and mix. Then mix in the yeast.

2. Tip in the liquid with half the beaten egg and mix to a rough dough.

3. Knead with dough hook for 7 – 8 min. By hand maybe 12 – 15 min.

4. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to prove (i.e. double in size – about an hour in a fairly warm room.)

5. Knock back the dough then divide into 12 balls. Roll the balls on a lightly floured surface and shape. Use the palms of your hands to drag the outer surface under the baps to tighten the skin.*

* For the ones shown here I thought it would nice to create cross shaped rolls, so I just made four snips per roll using scissors. Now that I know it works, I’ll do that again, but probably more carefully and precisely next time.

6. Place rolls on two baking sheets and fasten inside a proving bag (I use a kitchen bin liner). Leave for the second prove.

7. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C / Fan 180°C / 400°F / Gas 6.

8. Egg wash the baps, cut slashes with a razor blade or very sharp knife (unless you’ve already snipped them with scissors) then bake for 20 – 25 min.

I wish you every success with your bread making. I hope you make these baps and enjoy eating them. Below are some quite different types of bread that you might want to try. All recipes can be founds via this link. For bread recipes go direct to my bread section.

Wholemeal yeasted loaf

Decorated fougasse

Ginger Tea Cakes

My White Sourdough

Apricot and Almond Breakfast Rolls

If you’d like to make a comment or ask a question please do, via the contact page.

Happy Baking, Ian

This is an extremely moist and tasty cake. The polenta and pistachios give it a lovely distinctive texture and the orange flavour comes through well.

Makes: Quite a large cake, giving 12 or more slices

Level: Easy

Time: Prep: 30 – 35 minutes. Baking: 60 – 70 minutes

Need: A deep sided 23cm (9”) round spring-form tin

Cake ingredients

300g/10oz butter (softened)
300g/10oz caster sugar
1 large orange (zest and juice)
4 large eggs, beaten
300g/10oz ground almonds
150g/6oz polenta
1 tsp baking powder
50g/2oz pistachios, chopped moderately small

For the syrup & topping

A small or medium orange
75g/3oz caster sugar
2 – 3 tsp marmalade or apricot jam
About 50g/2oz pistachios, some roughly chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C / fan 140°C / 310°F / Gas 2.5. Grease the tin with butter and line the base with baking paper.

2. Put the soft butter, sugar and orange zest into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy.

3. Whisk in the eggs one by one, then add the ground almonds, polenta, orange juice, baking powder and chopped pistachios. Carefully mix in until thoroughly combined.

4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake in the oven for about 60 – 70 minutes. (Check at 60 minutes – cover if necessary). Set aside and make the syrup. (* read note below first)

5. For the syrup, put the sugar and the orange juice (add a little water if necessary) in a pan and stir over a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved, then simmer for 2 – 3 minutes until syrupy. Spoon or brush the hot syrup over the still warm cake.

* This makes the cake extra moist. You may prefer to use less syrup or even no syrup if you want a drier cake. Personally I’m happy with a lovely moist cake, but I thought it worth mentioning.

6. Leave in the tin until fully cooled, then remove and transfer to a serving plate or cake stand.

When the cake has cooled and is firm you may want to carefully invert it and have a flatter top surface.

7. Heat the marmalade and brush over the cooled cake then sprinkle on the chopped pistachios. Press them in gently.

I’d recommend serving it with creme fraiche or Greek yogurt – something with a bit of a “tang” to offset the sweetness of the cake.

I hope you enjoy this lovely cake. If you want more cake recipes click this link, or have a look at my site for lots of other great recipes, both sweet and savoury. Below are a few that I’d love you to try:

Strawberry Sponge Cake