Sweet Piggy Bun

This Easter holiday, we have been busy baking and decorating lots of cakes and buns like Sweet Piggy Bun & Chick bun, thanks to Wilko who sent us a surprise bundle of baking goodies to make it happen! My children love to help me in the kitchen and with these extra tools we had a lot of fun!

We have received this gorgeous blue Mason Cash mixing bowl, Mason Cash measuring jug, revolving rolling pin, whisk, Oink Oink mixing spoon, Oink Oink spatula, mini scales, heart cookie cutter and 9” spring form cake tin.

I had a bag of bread flour that is going to expire soon, so we decided to bake Chinese sweet buns instead of hot cross bun. These Chinese sweet bun are similar to a bun you might get from a shop except we added caster sugar to it. To make the dough, you need:

• 500g bread flour
• 5 teaspoon instant yeast
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 270ml water
• 50g butter, softened, extra for brushing
• Optional: sesame seeds, chocolate chips, toothpicks and popsicle sticks

 Method:

1. Place the bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt and water in the mixing bowl and mix well. We used the Oink Oink spoon and spatula to mix it. We all love this cute spoon and spatula and they only costs £1 which is great value for money.
   
2. Then add the butter and knead well.
3. Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover with wet cloth. Leave to prove.
4. When it doubles in size, knead it again and rest it for 15 minutes.
5. Now shape the dough into the desired shape.
6. Pig – To make the nose, I used toothpicks to make the nostrils. Leave the toothpicks while baking. As for its eye, I used a bigger stick (stick for popcake) to create the holes. To make sure the ears stick onto the dough, I used a dab of water to stick it on.
   

Chick – add a triangle dough in the middle as its beak. As for its eye, I used a bigger stick (stick for popcake) to create the holes.  We didn’t have time, but if you wish, you could add wings for your chick.  Add sesame seeds on the cheeks, then brush with butter.

7. Rest it for another 15 minutes before baking it at 200°c for 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven.
8. Bring the buns out and rest for a couple of minutes before popping the chocolate chips on for the eyes.

Later, we made a basic sponge cake with my daughter using the 9” spring form cake tin.  This is a great quality cake tin. It is heavy and solid.  The batter did get in between the gap but it was easy to use a washing-up brush to clean. I enjoyed using this cake tin more than a few I had bought recently.

After baking the cake, leave it out to cool before you place your icing on it.  To make the chick cake, you would need a yellow, white, black and orange icing fondant. I used the revolving rolling pin to roll out the white and yellow icing. It is a good weight, easy to use and doesn’t have any sharp edges.  We didn’t have a suitable cutter so we used a bottle cap to cut out the eyes.

This is our cute chick cake!

Disclosure: We received the samples for the purposes of writing this activity however all thoughts and opinions remain our own.