Star anise breakfast buns

Everyone loves a low-rise, yeast-riddled bun but sometimes a lack of planning, time and bench space gets the better of us.

More often than not, the bun need is more immediate and there is no kitchen real estate free to watch buns rise and prove across the space of a day.

These are here-and-now breakfast buns, with a warming star anise and cinnamon spice blend.

Serves: 12

Ingredients:

For the filling

For the buns

560g self-raising flour (1 ½ cups) plus a bit extra to scatter the bench for rolling
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
240g butter at room temperature, cubed
2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp ground star anise
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1 cup milk

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Grease a 12-cup deep muffin tin.
Prepare the filling by combining all the ingredients in a small bowl, mixing so there are no lumps, then set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the beater attached, add all the dry ingredients with the cubed butter and beat until a course crumb-like consistency. Slowly pour in the milk – you might not need it all depending on your flour - and beat until mixture starts to come away from the sides and forms a ball. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and leave to rest for a few minutes.
Fold out to a large rectangle and smear the filling - you want a fairly thick layer. Roll the dough up into a log, starting at the long side. Gently squeeze the roll then using a sharp knife cut the roll crosswise into 12 pieces. Place in the muffin pan and allow to rest for about 10 minutes.
Bake for 25 minutes. Turn onto a cooling rack immediately to prevent the buns sticking to the muffin tin – the sugar filling can leach and if it cools it will be trickier to get them out of the tin.
Dust with sugar (optional) before serving. Best eaten nice and warm.

Written by Katrine Meynink. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.

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