Iced Easter Swirls

Flora recently got in touch to see if I could come up with a recipe for them, so I decided to try baking with Flora Cuisine. It’s like liquid margarine so it’s easy to mix into baking and you can measure it in grams or mls depending on the recipe.  It's great if you’re keeping an eye on your saturated fat intake because Flora Cuisine contains 85% less than butter.

Iced Easter Swirls

450g white bread flour

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

55g sugar, I used golden caster

1/2 tsp salt

30g Flora Cuisine

180ml lukewarm water

2 free range eggs, lightly beaten

Filling:

15g Flora Cuisine

1/3 cup light soft brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

100g marzipan, finely diced

1 handful sultanas

1 handful dried apricots, finely diced

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large mixing bowl if making by hand, combine the flour, sugar, yeast and salt.

Mix the milk, Flora Cuisine and egg together.  Pour into the flour mixture and mix until a soft dough forms.  Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, this usually takes 5 - 7 minutes in a stand mixer or around 10 minutes if kneading by hand.

Put the dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover with cling film and leave to prove until doubled in size, this took about an hour in a warm kitchen.

Preheat your oven to 190C/170C Fan.  Line an oven tray with non-stick baking paper.

Knock the dough back and roll it out on a well floured surface to a rectangle approximately 40cm x 30cm.

Brush the dough with the Flora Cuisine.  Put the light soft brown sugar and mixed spice in a jar and screw on the lid.  Shake to mix then sprinkle over the dough followed by the marzipan, sultanas and dried apricots.

Roll up the dough like a Swiss roll then cut the dough log in to 8 - 10 equal pieces.  Put the slices of dough fairly close to each other on the baking tray cut side up.  Cover with greased cling film and allow to rise for 20 - 30 minutes before removing the cling film and baking the buns in the preheated oven.

Bake the buns for 15 - 20 minutes.  Once the buns are cooked and golden remove them from the tray and leave to cool completely.  Drizzle with a little icing made with icing sugar and water.

Disclosure: I have been paid for the time spent creating and photographing this recipe featuring Flora Cuisine