My very first job as a teenager – the very day I turned 14 and 9 months – was at a bakery in my hometown of Mudgee in NSW. McDonalds Bakery. Working for Lisa and Peter McDonald – the bakery was at that time in the Town Centre and it was seriously the best job ever.
My best friend and cousin – Sarah – also worked there and we used to have such fun. The best thing – we were allowed to eat what ever we wanted while we were working for free, each shift we got to take home a loaf of bread and buy items at a discount. This bakery is still around today and still owed by Lisa and Peter – it is called Mudgee Bakery and Cafe and is located in Market Street. It is honestly the best bakery you will ever find and if you are near Mudgee you have to drop in.
My fave items were: strawberry iced donuts (and yes I used to eat my body weight in them – which probably wasn’t very much at the time), steak tomato and onion pies and their chicken supreme pie is the best, apple plaited teacake, chocolate eclairs, apple turnovers, caramel tart, honey roll and the list goes on. Anyway… now that I am the station cook here and love it I have found myself experimenting with baked goods. It turns out I have a passion for all bakery items, if it has yeast in it I am there for it. Their apple plaited teacake was one of my favourites and one day I decided to give it a go myself.
This is what their teacake looks like…
Sorry that is the best pic I could find… but you get the gist, now while mine is a little different I can tell you it tastes amazing. This is mine…
This is to die for and tastes like a finger bun, best served with lashings of butter… oh god my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Now the best news – it is so easy to make and I promise you can do it. I do my dough in the bread maker. As you may know my very first bread maker was a very basic Black and Decker and it came with this unreal little recipe book. It is my bible when it comes to bread making now using the bread maker. I am onto my third bread maker and still use the most basic one I can find which is this one: The Breville Bread Maker.
The trick with bread makers is you need to use exact measurements and put the ingredients into the bread maker in the order they are listed. Then you just select the “dough” cycle and press start. My dough cycle takes 1.5 hours and then I usually let the dough sit in there for about 30 minutes.
So here is the recipe…
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Apple Plaited Teacake
Description
This is to die for and tastes like a finger bun, best served with lashings of butter… oh god my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Now the best news – it is so easy to make and I promise you can do it. I do my dough in the bread maker.
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons milk powder
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup pie apples chopped (from tin)
4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoons yeast (instant – I use the Lowan yeast)
Icing:
Make a buttercream icing using a fair bit of butter, icing sugar, boiling water, some strawberry jelly crystals for flavouring and a small amount of pink food dye
Instructions
Add all ingredients into the bread maker
Select “dough” cycle and press start
Once dough cycle is finished it is good to leave it in the bread maker for about 30 minutes
Remove dough and place on a floured surface
Divide into 3 equal pieces and create 3 long tubes of dough by squeezing each piece of dough – these should be around 40-50cm long
Join the 3 ends together and plait the tubes as you would plait hair
Push some extra chopped pie apple into the teacake and bake at 190-200 degrees C for about 20 minutes – baking time may vary depending on your oven, fan forced may not take as long
Remove cooked teacake – it should be golden brown but not too dark
Make a sugar syrup – about 3 tablespoons of sugar in a small amount of boiling water and brush the teacake with the sugar syrup
Allow to cool and top with strawberry icing using a piping bag
My friend Fee taught me the special little trick about adding strawberry jelly crystals to your icing to give it a yummy strawberry flavour. It works a treat and tastes just like a finger bun. So good!
So there you have it. Let me know how you go. I think my next cookbook is going to have to be all things baked goods. “Baking with Chards” maybe.
If you would like to buy my cookbook you can get your little paws on it here: Miss Chardy’s Guide to Station Cooking
Well, Strawberry Jelly crystals ! I did not know that. Thanks Dan, and Fee 💕
Nifty little trick isn’t it Robbsie!!!!