Have you ever been to Bath, Bath, however
they say it, that town in England. It is one of my favorite places on Earth. The
architecture alone is so stunning from the Roman baths, to the Abbey, to the
Georgian houses of the Royal Crescent. I mean the city's love of Jane Austen is
palpable just like mine, but all of that great as it is pales in comparison with
the supple majesty that is the Sally Lunn bun. The original Bath bun, and that'swhat we're talking about today on Tasting History. So nobody outside of theSally Lunn house where they make them knows the actual recipe for the Sally
Lunn Bun, but in 1826 a rather presumptuous Marguerite Dodd took a stab
at it herself in 'The Cook and Housewifes Manual.' "Make them as French bread, but
dissolved some sugar in the hot milk mold into the form of cakes. A little
saffron boiled in the milk enriches the color of these or any other cakes." Not
the most detailed of recipes, so in 1979 Elizabeth David in her book English
Bread and Yeast Cookery filled in some of the gaps left by miss Dodds, and
subsequent Baker's have thrown their hat in the ring to try to figure out exactly
what makes these Sally Lunn Buns so amazing. So the recipe that we're using
today is pulled from all sorts of different resources, and is not the
actual Sally Lunn Bun because nobody knows it, but it will be enough to hold
you over until you get to Bath yourself. What you'll need is 1 and 1/4 cup or
280 milliliters of whole milk, 6 tablespoons or 85 grams of butter at
room temperature, 1/4 cup or 50 grams of sugar, a pound or 450 grams of bread
flour you can also use all-purpose if that's what you have. 7 grams of either
instant yeast or active dry yeast 2 eggs plus an optional extra egg for an egg
wash at the end, the zest of one lemon, one and a half teaspoons of salt, and two
or three threads of saffron, optional. It's just there for the color and it's because
that's something that was mentioned in older recipes of the Sally Lunn Bun. First
as Margaret Dodds prescribes warm the milk over a low heat. Now if you are
using instant yeast go ahead and warm the full cup and quarter right now, but
if you're using active dry yeast then you're going to need to probably
activate that yeast by putting it into a quarter cup of milk. So take a quarter
cup of the whole milk and warm it to just over room temperature. You can
probably just leave it out for a little while and then put the active dry yeast
in there and just a pinch of the sugar as well, and let that sit until it
becomes nice and foamy. So you know that it's working and then heat the other cup
of milk. Now if you're using just instant yeast go ahead, and ignore what I just
said and heat the full cup and a quarter of milk over the stove now you want to
make sure that it's over low heat because you don't want to scorch the
milk. If you do you'll have to throw it all out and start over again.
So once the milk has started to warm add the sugar and stir it in to dissolve and
then once you get to about a hundred degrees add the butter and let it melt
in. Now if you are going to use the saffron threads because you want that
darker color, drop them in the milk now. Once the butter is melted and it should
only take a couple minutes at most, remove the pot from the heat and let it
cool to 110 degrees Fahrenheit at most. Can't be any more than that or else it
can kill the yeast and we don't want that. Then in the bowl of a stand mixer
or just a regular bowl sift in the flour, and if you are using instant yeast add
that now and whisk together if you're using the active dry yeast hold off. Then
add the warm milk mixture, then your lemon zest, the two eggs and the salt.
Again if your yeast is already in there you can set it on medium and start to
mix all of the ingredients together. If you're using the active dry yeast now is
the time to add it but go ahead and give a little mix to the ingredients just so
the active dry yeast doesn't touch the salt directly, because that can also kill
it. Yeast is a very delicate flower, it's not a flower but it's just a saying.
Now regardless of which yeast you used we should
be in the same place and you can go ahead and turn the mixer on medium for
about seven or eight minutes, or until the dough really kind of comes together.
It's not gonna form a ball because it is very sticky but it'll become nice and
smooth on the outside now you can do this by hand, but just like brioche dough
this is a really, really sticky dough so it's annoying to do by hand, so I
encourage you to use a mixer. If you have one but if you don't that's okay just
get ready. Once the dough has come together, and is nice and smooth cover it
with a tea towel and leave it for about an hour to 90 minutes, or until the dough
has doubled in size. So last summer I visited Bath and I stayed just across
the lane from the oldest house in the city which is now the Sally Lunn house,
and I knew there was a baked good inside that building because 1) I could smell
it all day and 2) I had seen it on the Great British Bake Off, and just fallen
in love with it and I guess everyone else in England had also seen it on the
Great British Bake Off, because there was a line from open to close all the way
around the corner and I ain't got no time for that
I had a jam-packed schedule. I had to take falconry lessons, I went on a horse,
and I had tons of fancy houses to gawk at so I figured
Sally Lunn would just have to wait until the next trip, but on my last night now I
don't know if you believe in miracles but if you do this is up there with you
know like the Shroud of Turin because on my last night only minutes before the
Sally Lunn house was supposed to close a wind blew through the alley, and swept
all the customers away just like it did the nanny's in Mary Poppins, or at least
I'm assuming that's what happened because when I turned the corner there
was nobody in line. So I just walked right in, it was pretty awesome. So not
only did I get to enjoy one of the most magnificent pillowy slightly sweet
breads that I have ever had the pleasure of tasting but also the terming young
woman in the museum that they have downstairs was able to give me a full
history of the Sally Lunn. Now the story as was told to me on that
warm August evening last summer starts in the 1680s with a young Huguenots
woman named Solange Luyon. She had fled France after being persecuted for her
Protestant faith, and ended up in Bath taking a job at a bakery selling the
Baker's wares on the street, but at night she would experiment with her own baked
goods and one night the Baker came downstairs to find her making a bread
that he had never seen before a big soft brioche bun with a smooth shiny top. So
he decided to start selling them upstairs and they were a hit and
whenever anyone would ask what is this he would say oh that is a Solange
Luyon bun. Well just like Harry Potter had to dumb down the name of Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for American audiences to Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone I don't really see how that's any easier.
So did Solange Luyon have to dumb down her own name for her English
customers, and she dumbed it down to Sally Lunn which I guess was easier to
pronounce and thus was born the Sally Lunn bun, but I ask you is that really
where the Sally Lunn bun came from. Well let's look at the evidence. It seems like
the first mention of the Sally Lunn actually happened in writing almost a
hundred years later in 1776 in a poem by Irish poet William Preston where he
talked of Sally Lunn and saffron cake. Now we know that around this time the
bun had become a centerpiece in what were known as public breakfasts, and that
is when the very wealthy of England would come to Bath and mingle at
pleasure gardens famous in Georgian baths, and it was at one of these
breakfasts that we actually get a dire warning about the Sally Lunn bun from
author and eccentric Philip Thicknesse, in his 1780
publication The Valetudinarians' Bath Guide. By the way valetudinarian like my
new favorite word it means someone who is overly worried about their health,
perfect for the time that we're living in I suppose. Thicknesse tells of a
young man who fell to his death after a hearty breakfast of spongy hot rolls, or
Sally Lunns. He said "such a meal few young men in full health can get over
without feeling much inconvenience", hmm
sinister. The plot thickens when in 1827 Sally Lunn herself was mentioned as
having been selling the buns on the street only 30 years previous. Well that
would put Sally Lunn at like a hundred and forty years old,
inconceivable! Finally in 1845 Eliza Acton gives us a recipe for a rich
French breakfast cake called a Solimemne derived from Soleil Et Lue or sun and moon
cake, because of the color of the top being dark and yellow and then you open
it up and the inside is nice and white, or from the top being yellow and the
bottom being white depending on who you ask.
Anyway Soleil e Lune, Sally Lunn it's pretty close. I don't know who to believe
but frankly it doesn't really matter you know sometimes with history it's very
important to get the exact facts and figures, and sometimes it's not, and then
sometimes it's just impossible, and I think that this time it's one of those.
And frankly it's a bun you know. So personally I'm gonna go with the more
romantic story of Solongel Luyon coming over from France after being
persecuted and finding work in a bake shop in Bath but regardless of which
story you prefer that one or the Soleil et Lune, it is most important that you hit the
Like button on this video for the YouTube algorithm. Now if you visit Bath
and I suggest that you do, it's very important that you actually go to the
Sally Lunn house to get a Sally Lunn bun because if you ask for a Bath bun
anywhere else in the city you're probably going to get something quite
different smaller, more compact and much sweeter but I think that we'll need to
wait for another Tasting hHistory because it's about time to shape our buttons. So
once your dough has doubled in size punch it down and dump it out onto a
lightly floured surface then divide the dough into 6 equal ish pieces and form
each into a round ball now because it is sticky. Might be easier if you put a
little flour on your hands before forming the balls and set each ball onto
baking sheet. Now I would suggest using either parchment paper or a Silpat like
I use and if you do not have a Silpat let me change your life by suggesting
that you get one. I have a link down in the description where you can get one,
but you can also just go to any cooking store and they will have them and they
are amazing. So then gently flatten the dough balls into cakes. Now these will be
about four inches across the actual Sally Lunns are huge they're like this
big like the size of my face and that's a big face, so you can do that but then
this recipe will only make three that's fine. I'm doing six because I don't need
a piece of bread that big. Once they're pressed down a bit, cover the buns and
let them rise for another 45 minutes to an hour or until they're quite puff. Now
you can use anything to cover them I wouldn't suggest a tea towel because
it's kind of heavy and is gonna leave marks on the buns. I used aluminum foil
because it actually kind of keeps away from the buns but you can also use saran
wrap or whatever. Now if you do use aluminum foil make sure to keep it
because you might need it later on to cover the buns if they start to brown
too much in the oven. Now about 30 minutes into that second rise pre-heat
your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius and get ready to
make your egg wash. Now if you didn't use saffron I would suggest using a whole
egg yolk and and whites and just mix it until it's nice and frothy, and that's
what you would use. If you did use saffron, it's already gonna get
kind of dark so I would just use the white to make it nice and shiny on top.
So once the oven is ready and your buns have puffed up brush them with the egg
wash and set them in the oven for 15 minutes now take a look at them about 10
minutes in, because if they are darkening too much then you're gonna want to tint
them with that aluminum foil. I ended up putting one on top and one on bottom and
so I didn't have to tent them but I'll say the ones on top ended up turning out
better. I don't know if it was because of the Silpat or because they started on
top but there it is. Now if you have watched this show before
you'll know that my oven sucks and it's sometimes hard to tell if something is
done or not so I rely on this which is an instant-read thermometer. Life saver
especially for breads but really can be used for anything
I used it to warm the milk it's good for candy as well but I'll link to those
down below but if you are using a thermometer then you're looking for a
hundred and ninety to 200 degrees Fahrenheit for the inside of the bread
so once they're baked through take them out of the oven and let them cool on a
wire rack now you can serve them slightly warm but you'll want to let
them cool somewhat and these can be served with butter or jam or clotted
cream if you have it, but I'm going to try one just plain so you're supposed to
just tear them open which is actually rather easy to do. It just tears fairly
well and you get a top and a bottom and I'm going to start with the top oh my
god make these it's worth it mm-hmm. It's like eating one of the clouds of heaven.
It's so soft, it's a little sweet but not too sweet. Anything will go on this, you
can even put like savory stuff like lox or something. I'm gonna eat
all six of these, I should have made the really big ones. Anyway I encourage you
to make these. I encourage you to visit Bath, it's one of the most amazing
cities in the world and I encourage you to Subscribe and hit the notification
bell so I can see you next time on Tasting History. Eating the rest of this.
