37. The Best Part Is at the Bottom of the Tin

Vera: Have you ever turned a tin upside down over a plate and held your breath, waiting to see whether everything would come out? If you have not, today is your day. With these buns, the best part is at the bottom of the tin.

Anton: A layer of honey, butter and brown sugar. It bakes under the buns, and when you turn them out, it runs down over the top like sap down the bark of a pine.

Ten Past Four, by the Honey Shelf

Vera: Noor has climbed onto the bench below the shelf of honey jars and is choosing the darkest one, and Kasimir stands guard at the stove end of the table with a plate already in his hands, far too early.

Anton: Hold on to that plate, Kasimir. You will need it in an hour. These buns come from many places, wherever bees are kept and wheat is grown: farms in the north, villages in the hills, every land where honey is the sweetness of the house.

Vera: Is dark honey better than light?

Anton: Neither. Only different. Light honey comes from clover and blossom, and tastes of spring. Dark honey comes from heather or forest trees, and tastes deeper, almost like smoke. Use what you love.

Vera: And the buns themselves?

Anton: Plain and soft, with less sugar than the cinnamon buns, because the honey brings plenty. You may roll each ball in a pinch of cinnamon first. But plain is how I learned them, and plain lets the honey speak.

Vera: One more thing for grown-ups. Honey is not for babies under one year old.

Question: Why must the buns be turned out after only two minutes, and not left to cool in the tin?

Answer: While hot, the honey syrup is runny and slides out with the buns. If it cools in the tin, it sets hard like amber and glues them to the bottom.

At the Work Table

For nine buns in a square tin 20 cm (8 inches) wide. Dough: 350 g plain flour (2 3/4 cups), 5 g instant dried yeast (1 1/2 teaspoons), 25 g sugar (2 tablespoons), 5 g fine salt (a scant teaspoon), 180 ml lukewarm milk (3/4 cup), 1 egg, 40 g soft butter (3 tablespoons).

Honey layer: 60 g butter (4 tablespoons), 85 g honey (1/4 cup), 50 g brown sugar (1/4 cup, packed). Oven: 190°C (375°F).

Anton: One, for a child: mix and knead the dough for ten minutes. Cover and let it rise for an hour.

Anton: Two, for a grown-up only: melt the butter, honey and sugar in a small pan over low heat, stirring until smooth, and pour it into the tin. Hot sugar burns badly; children stay back.

Anton: Three, for a child: cut the dough into nine pieces, roll them into balls and set them in three rows of three on the honey. Let them rise forty-five minutes.

Anton: Four, for a grown-up: bake about twenty-five minutes, until deep golden, with a tray on the shelf below to catch drips. If the tops brown too fast, lay foil over them.

Anton: Five, for a grown-up: after two minutes, lay a plate over the tin and, in oven gloves, turn it over in one quick move. Lift off the tin and spoon any syrup left inside over the buns. Wait ten minutes before anyone eats.

The Hives at the Edge of the Pines, in August

Vera: My uncle Ilmar kept bees in white hives at the edge of a pine wood, where the sandy path ran out and the heather began. In August he would carry a dripping frame of comb into the kitchen, with bees still clinging to it, and we children ran out of the room screaming.

Vera: He only laughed and brushed them off with a goose feather. Then he cut the comb into a bowl and let us chew the wax, warm and golden, until our jaws ached. Beside the hives he grew chamomile, for the bees, he said, and for himself.

Anton: Every honey bun I bake, I think of a kitchen like that. Bees, wax, and children screaming. Lovely.

Five O'Clock, the Plate Turned Over

Three quick questions. One: Where does the honey go? Two: When do we turn the buns out? Three: Who turns the tin over?

Answers. One: In the bottom of the tin, under the buns. Two: After two minutes, while the syrup is still runny. Three: A grown-up, in oven gloves.

Vera: Look at them shine. Kasimir's plate has finally been useful. Noor has honey to her elbows.

Anton: Make a pot of chamomile tea, the little flowers steeped in hot water and cooled to warm. Ilmar would have liked it. It is gentle and sweet as a meadow at dusk, and it has no caffeine at all.

38. Squeeze Until It Feels Heavy

Anton: "A doughnut that has never been in hot oil? That is only a bun pretending." That is what Jasper said when he came in from the garden and saw the trays, and he folded his arms like a judge.

Vera: Let him judge after he has eaten one. With the jam inside. Then we shall see.

Half Past Four, at the Sugar Bowl

Vera: Jasper has taken the chair by the garden door with his boots still on, and Mina sits at the sugar bowl under the hanging basket of onions, licking a finger and dipping it in, which nobody has allowed.

Anton: Jasper is right that most doughnuts are fried. But hot oil is no work for children. It spits and burns, and a pan of it can catch fire. So we bake ours, brush them with butter, roll them in sugar and fill them. They come out soft and sweet, and nobody stands near a pot of boiling fat.

Vera: And how does the jam get inside?

Anton: Through a small hole in the side. You make it with a chopstick, push in a piping bag with a long, thin nozzle, and squeeze until it feels heavy in your hand.

Vera: Mina has never held a piping bag.

Anton: Then stand the bag in a tall glass and fold its top over the rim like a collar, so it holds itself open. Spoon the jam in and twist the top shut. One hand squeezes from the top; the other only guides the nozzle.

Question: Why do we take the doughnuts out while they are still pale gold?

Answer: A doughnut should be soft all the way through. The longer it bakes, the thicker and drier its crust becomes. Pale gold means the inside is done and the outside still tender, like a peach that is ripe but not bruised.

At the Work Table

For ten doughnuts. Dough: 350 g plain flour (2 3/4 cups), 5 g instant dried yeast (1 1/2 teaspoons), 40 g sugar (3 tablespoons), 5 g fine salt (a scant teaspoon), 1 egg, 160 ml lukewarm milk (2/3 cup), 40 g soft butter (3 tablespoons).

To finish: 40 g melted butter (3 tablespoons), 100 g sugar (1/2 cup), 200 g smooth jam (2/3 cup). Oven: 190°C (375°F).

Anton: One, for a child: mix and knead the dough for ten minutes. Cover and let it rise for an hour.

Anton: Two, for a child: cut ten pieces of about 60 g, roll them into tight balls and flatten them a little. Set them 5 cm (2 inches) apart on lined trays and let them rise forty minutes.

Anton: Three, for a grown-up: bake twelve to fourteen minutes, only until pale gold. Lift the trays out in oven gloves.

Anton: Four, for a child: after five minutes, when they can be held, brush each with melted butter and roll it in the sugar, until it glitters like a field after frost.

Anton: Five, for a child: poke a chopstick into the side of each, to the middle, and wiggle it to make a little room.

Anton: Six, for a child: stir the jam hard first, because lumps block the nozzle. Thick custard works too. Spoon the jam into the piping bag, push the nozzle into the hole and squeeze gently until a bead of jam shows at the hole, like resin on the bark of a tree.

A Frozen Town Square, Before the Fast

Anton: When I was young I worked one winter in a town in the cold east. On the last Thursday before the long spring fast, the whole town ate doughnuts, and the queue for Krystyna's shop wound twice around the frozen square.

Anton: Her windows were so steamed up that from outside you saw only shadows moving. She filled every doughnut with rose-petal jam she had made in June, and that day she did not sit down once, from four in the morning until the last tray was empty at dark.

Vera: How many?

Anton: She never counted. She said counting would only make her tired, and that the empty trays told her enough.

The Garden Door, Nearly Five

Three quick questions. One: Why do we bake and not fry? Two: What colour should they be when they come out? Three: What do we make the hole with?

Answers. One: Hot oil is dangerous for children. Two: Pale gold. Three: A chopstick.

Vera: Jasper has eaten one. Slowly. Then a second, faster. He has said nothing at all.

Anton: That is the verdict of a judge. Mina, the sugar bowl, please. Before the bees find it.

Key Words

Piping bag: a cone-shaped bag that is filled with jam, cream or icing and squeezed to push it out in a thin line.

Nozzle: the narrow tip at the end of a piping bag, which shapes what comes out.