Black Forest Buns

Delicious buns filled with chocolate cake and cherry preserve are a perfect treat any time of the day

Course Baking

Cuisine International

Keyword Black Forest, Buns

Prep Time 3

Cook Time 30

Total Time 3 30

Servings Buns

Calories 228kcal

Author Shireen Sequeira

Ingredients

For the Dough:

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup (50 grams) butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg at room temperature lightly beaten
3/4 tsp salt
1-1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3 to 3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

For the Filling:

3/4 cup (approx 200grams) cherry (or strawberry) jam/preserve or compote
2-1/2 to 3 cups crumbled chocolate sponge cake * see notes

For drizzling (optional)

1/2 cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate or Hershey's chocolate syrup or dust with cocoa powder

Instructions

Mix the water and milk in a saucepan and heat it till quite hot but not boiling. Pour this liquid into a large bowl, add the butter and whisk till the butter has melted. Add in the sugar and stir till the sugar dissolves. Allow the mixture to cool down to lukewarm. If it is still hot do not add the yeast as the heat will kill it.
Add the yeast and the lightly beaten egg and whisk to blend. Then add about 1 cup of the flour and mix well. Initially the mixture will be very pasty. Keep adding flour and the salt in parts until you get a dough that is smooth, elastic but not sticky excessively sticky. You may require a little more than the given amount of flour. I used approx 3-3/4th cups of flour
Turn out the mixture onto a clean, lightly floured working surface and dust flour and knead until you get a dough that is no longer sticky
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn it over a couple of times until it is well coated with the oil. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm spot of your kitchen until it doubles in volume, for about 1 - 1-1/2 hours.
When the dough has doubled remove it onto a flat surface and roll it out into an 18” by 12” rectangle (or 9" by 12" if using half the recipe).
Spread the cherry or strawberry jam/compote leaving a space of 1/2 inch all around the edges. Sprinkle the chocolate cake crumbs on top of this.
Starting from the 18" edge tightly roll the dough away from you (as if you would roll a carpet). Seal the edges as firmly as possible using some water to dampen the edges to seal them.
Using a sharp serrated knife/dough scraper cut the roll into 1-1/2" wide pieces. You should have 12 pieces for the full recipe and 6 for half of it.
Make collars for each piece using foil or parchment paper to fit well around each piece and then place them spaced well apart on a baking tray. * see notes. Cover loosely, and allow to rise, for about 1 hour or till almost double.
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and bake the buns for 25 - 30 minutes or until the buns turn a nice golden brown in colour. Remove and cool completely.
If you wish, serve them drizzled with melted chocolate or dusted with cocoa

Notes

1. You can use a homemade basic chocolate sponge cake or a store bought one. Do not use anything besides a basic sponge, the drier the better. I made the mistake of using a brownie which made the filling/centre of the buns pretty paste like and gooey (not that it affected the taste in any way)
2. When you roll the dough make sure you do it as tightly as possible because it will swell quite a bit while baking and the open ends may loosen up.
3. If you don't want to make individual collars for each piece you can place the pieces in a lightly greased rectangular baking tin with raised sides. If you place them in a round cake tin you will get buns that are more triangular in shape as they will cram up together when the dough is placed to rise again. If you place them too far apart, they will spread rather rise in height.
4. If you do make collars for each make sure not to make the collars too tight as the dough will seep out from below and overlap on the collar. Foil works best for this.

Nutrition