With a bowl of egg yolks left over from the Sponge Cake weekend I hit the books to find inspiration. I wasn’t feeling the classics like mayonnaise or creme Brulé. I was craving something new and different.
I found exactly what I was looking for in the Disney Enchanted Recipes Book: Bear Cub Buns inspired from the movie Brave which I only just took the time to watch a few weeks ago.
The movie came out in 2012, I’m clearly behind in taking in new Disney movies but Disney has this love for making their stories gut-punchingly sad at times and I simply need to be in the right mood to take in something that I know will destroy me (Since ‘Up’ I’ve been especially vigilant… I was in a THEATRE for that intro).
Thankfully this movie wasn’t too bad until the end but the shenanigans still keep the mood light. I realized while watching the movie that I’ve read too many behavioral therapy books because I was just annoyed by the lack of communication by everyone involved. Evidently, it ends with the family communicating better- guess that was the moral of the story. So my mood went from annoyed, to emotional, to “oh.. guess that was it".
The Bear Cub Buns are inspired by the Witch that assists Merida in ‘changing’ her mother so she won’t need to take part in a betrothal. The witch provides herwith these sweet buns which Merida feeds to her mother having absolutely no idea what they will do to her… Because she asked literally zero questions to the witch. Anyways she gets turned into a bear and the rest of the movie is about reversing this spell that Merida is trying to fit the pieces together since y’know… Didn’t take in the terms and conditions at purchase.
This recipe is WEIRD. It’s a cross of a bread roll and a cake. It calls for active dry yeast but no water to dissolve it and the instructions say to just mix it in with the rest of the ingredients. No surprise I can see little freckles of yeast throughout the dough that reminded me of being back in college and the chef instructor yelling at a student for not dissolving their yeast before making the dough (he also has the freckles of yeast in his dough.)
I decided to just trust the process and see what happens.
Bear Cub Buns/ Scottish Sweet Buns
1 cup flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 whole egg plus 4 yolks, divided
pinch of salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
Add flour, sugar, yeast, the whole egg and 3 egg yolks and the salt to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix at medium speed for 5 minutes. Add butter and mix for another 10 minutes.
Lightly dust a mixing bowl with flour and set dough in the bowl. Cover and let rise for 1 hour.
Take the dough out of the bowl and knead it; then cover again and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Remove dough from the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Punch the dough down and then cut into 10 pieces. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Shape the dough into balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Stir together the remaining egg yolk and a little water. Lightly coat the buns with the egg wash. Bake for 12 minutes. Let cool completely if icing.
I opted to skip the icing but the recipe can be seen in the first photo. I skipped it mainly because I wasn’t confident these were going to turn out. Despite the fact that the yeast (as suspected) remained intact and were little freckles within the dough the buns are delicious- very flakey and light.
I didn’t feel like running out for cherries just for this so I added some blueberry jam to the centre of my buns before baking them- It was a delicious addition and honestly made it so the icing was not missed at all.
I left a note to myself to use instant yeast next time- just need to do the conversion and I think they will turn out even better when they can rise properly.
This was a really fun recipe to try out and the quirks made it a little fun and tested my pastry knowledge. Good to know I still have the knack.
