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.