Classic Chelsea buns recipe | Sainsbury`s Magazine (2024)
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Makes: 12
Prep time: 40 mins
Total time:
Recipe photograph by Maja Smend
Recipe by Tamsin Burnett-Hall
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Commemorated by authors such as Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll, this traditional currant bun was created around 1700, at the Chelsea Bun House. They were so popular that there was once a near-riot over supply!
Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
See more of Tamsin Burnett-Hall’s recipes
Tamsin Burnett-Hall
Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
See more of Tamsin Burnett-Hall’s recipes
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Ingredients
For the dough
50g butter
200ml milk, plus extra if needed
500g strong bread flour, plus extra to dust
1 x 7g fast-action dried yeast
50g caster sugar
1 tsp fine sea salt
zest of 1 lemon
1 large egg, beaten
For the filling
50g soft butter, plus extra to grease
100g light brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon or mixed spice
200g currants or mixed dried fruit
For the glaze
50g caster sugar
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Best eaten on the day of baking, but can be frozen.
Melt the butter for the dough in a saucepan, remove from the heat and add the milk. This will take the chill off the milk, without making it too hot. In a large mixing bowl (or stand mixer), combine the flour, yeast, caster sugar, salt and lemon zest. Make a well in the centre and add the beaten egg and the buttery milk. Mix together until you have a soft dough (add extra milk if needed), then knead for 10 minutes by hand on a floured surface (or 5 minutes on low speed in a stand mixer). When the dough is stretchy and springy, return it to the bowl, cover and leave to rise for 2 hours or until doubled in size.
Knock the dough down then roll out to about 34cm x 48cm on a floured surface. Spread with the soft butter (leave a border along one long edge). Mix the sugar, cinnamon or mixed spice and currants or dried fruit together. Scatter evenly over the dough and press in gently.
Dampen the long border with a little water, then roll up like a Swiss roll towards this side, pinching the seam closed. Trim off the ends, then cut the roll into 12 fat slices. Grease and line a 20cm x 30cm baking tin and add the buns; they should be spaced about 1cm apart. Cover the tray and leave to prove for about 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4.
Bake the Chelsea buns for about 25 minutes until golden and cooked through. Dissolve the sugar in 3 tablespoons water in a small pan and simmer for 1 minute, then leave to cool. Brush the buns with the mixture as soon as they come out of the oven; as the water evaporates, you will be left with a sticky glaze.
Let them cool for at least half an hour before tearing apart and eating.
The Old Chelsea Bun House was demolished in 1839, but luckily you can still buy Chelsea Buns from your local baker or if you're really lucky, in supermarkets. Next time you enjoy one, remember its origins at the Old Chelsea Bun House over three hundred years ago. As they say, if it's good enough for royalty...
Chelsea bun, traditional British treat that is made from yeast dough topped with currants, brown sugar, and butter and then coiled into square- or round-shaped buns.
Belgian buns are round in shape, filled with lemon curd and sultanas and finished with glacé icing and a cherry, while Chelsea buns have a distinctive square shape, are filled with cinnamon butter and dried fruit, and topped with a simple sugar glaze.
If you are not overbaking now, you should change the ratios, not the baking time. If you want it moist-sticky, you should increase the sugar (and maybe underbake just a tiny bit). If you want it just softer, but without getting much stickier, you should increase the fat.
These currant-studded cinnamon buns (known as Chelsea buns) are an 18th-century recipe whose origin is said to trace back to a London bakery called the Chelsea Bun House. This version comes from Historic Williamsburg's online recipe database—a great source if you're interested in early American cooking.
The Chelsea bun is a type of currant bun that was first baked in the 18th century at the Bun House in Chelsea, an establishment favoured by Hanoverian royalty accustomed to similar pastries in their native cuisine.
Chelsea Buns are your festive, colorful cinnamon rolls with all the delightful add-ons like raisins, pecans and cherries. Baking bread to me was once fearful and intimidating. One that needs to be tackled with extra care and lots of precautions.
Easter is traditionally the time for hot cross buns which are slightly different to Chelsea buns as the Chelsea bun is made of a rich yeast dough flavoured with lemon peel, cinnamon or mixed spice and are much sweeter and stickier than hot cross buns.
That explains why people from northern England predominantly plump for 'buns' or 'barm cakes', while in the south-east (especially London and the Home Counties), all you'll really hear is 'roll'.
The mystery yellow stuff in Belgian Buns is lemon curd, a cooked mixture of eggs, lemons and butter. It's a versatile lemony spread often used on cheesecakes or in tarts. Lemon curd and sultanas are the filling in a Belgian Bun.
For soft bread, use a high-gluten flour, such as bread flour or all-purpose flour. Use the right amount of water. The amount of water you use will also affect the texture of your bread. If you use too much water, your bread will be too soft and sticky.
Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.
Too much flour, or not the right kind, could be to blame. Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.
The ultra-sticky Chelsea buns are Fitzbillies most famous and most popular product since 1920. We bake them by hand 362 days a year (Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day are our only days off), starting at 4 in the morning, so the buns are ready when we open at 8am.
This Chelsea bun recipe is enriched and often flavoured with lemon or spices; the classic filling is butter, brown sugar and dried vine fruits, and once baked, they're glazed to make glistening spirals of light bread dough drenched in toffee-ish flavours or icing.
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Prep time: 40 mins
