British · Dessert
Chelsea Buns

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Method
- Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the yeast.
- Meanwhile, warm the milk and butter in a saucepan until the butter melts and the mixture is lukewarm.
- Add the milk mixture and egg to the flour mixture and stir until the contents of the bowl come together as a soft dough. (You may need to add a little extra flour.)
- Tip the dough onto a generously floured work surface. Knead for five minutes, adding more flour if necessary, until the dough is smooth and elastic and no longer feels sticky.
- Lightly oil a bowl with a little of the vegetable oil. Place the dough into the bowl and turn until it is covered in the oil. Cover the bowl with cling film and set aside in a warm place for one hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
- Lightly grease a baking tray.
- For the filling, knock the dough back to its original size and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll the dough out into a rectangle 0.5cm/¼in thick. Brush all over with the melted butter, then sprinkle over the brown sugar, cinnamon and dried fruit.
- Roll the dough up into a tight cylinder , cut ten 4cm/1½in slice and place them onto a lightly greased baking sheet, leaving a little space between each slice. Cover with a tea towel and set aside to rise for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
- Bake the buns in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until risen and golden-brown.
- Meanwhile, for the glaze, heat the milk and sugar in a saucepan until boiling. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Remove the buns from the oven and brush with the glaze, then set aside to cool on a wire rack.
Cooking notes
Baked goods are unforgiving with rounding — use weights rather than volumes whenever possible, and verify pan capacity if you scale up or down significantly.
For volume-to-weight conversions of any ingredient — flour, sugar, butter, salts — use the ingredient converter. To translate the recipe's oven temperature between °C, °F and gas mark, see the temperature converter.
When you scale this recipe up or down, remember that cooking time does not scale linearly. A doubled cake takes longer, but not twice as long; a doubled soup takes roughly twice as long. The cooking-time guide gives sensible starting estimates by dish geometry.
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Chelsea Buns
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OpenTemperature
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OpenCooking time
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OpenPan size
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OpenLength
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OpenIngredient density
A cup of flour weighs 120 g; a cup of honey weighs 340. The full table of ~40 staples, with sources.
OpenOpen in main scaler
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OpenFrom the journal
Original essays on the small details.
The why behind the technique — original writing on the ingredient and equipment choices that separate a good cook from a frustrated one.
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Butter temperature ruins more cookies than the oven does
Cold, softened, melted — three states, three completely different bakes
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Go deeper
Where this recipe sits in the wider tradition.
Each guide below is a real essay on the cuisine or the category — pillars, staples, techniques worth learning — paired with a curated grid of recipes filed under it.
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