October 30, 2013

Australian Boston Bun

Name: Australian Boston Bun
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Yield: 1 large bun
Cuisine: Australian
Ingredients: Boston Bun; 1 cup mashed potato (1 medium potato is sufficient to make this); 3/4 cup superfine/caster sugar; 2 cups flour; 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1 cup milk; 2/3 cup sultanas or raisins; Icing; 30 grams butter; 1 1/2 cups confectioner's/icing sugar; 1 1/2 tablespoons milk; 1/3 cup desiccated coconut

A little over a year ago I stepped foot for the first time in Australia, to attend my only cousin’s wedding and while my time in the continent was relatively short, I have in fact grown up around some of Australia’s fair food.

The bread/cake concoction named the Boston Bun in Australia is also known as the Sally Lunn bun in New Zealand and is more often topped with pink colored icing as opposed to the white one in my photographs.

Doing a little research it turns out the New Zealand known name of Sally Lunn was a way to ‘english up’ the original creator of the bun here in Bath, England in the 1600’s who had fled France as a refugee, however, the recipe here is vastly different from the original that is still sold in Bath to this day.

The Boston Bun is uniquely Australasian and while the history of what it is today may in fact have only been created in the 1950’s or 1960’s, there is a much vaster history to this fair and humble bread here.

Working in London is almost like bringing all the foreign Australian’s and New Zealander’s together as people no longer living in their home countries. It really is interesting to see how much our two cultures are intertwined and why we can live in each others countries with no paperwork required.

Our accents sound the same to everyone else and often enough the talented artists from New Zealand soon enough get named as Australian. We share so much culture and are almost in each others back pocket so often that it’s no surprise we share similar food.

*Note, I remade this in 2017 to improve on the images and the cake tin was 13′ so this would usually be a third higher…then we had a power outage so this stood in the tin for an hour-and-a-half so I hope yours rises better than this one…though this is still great in it’s imperfect state.

Boston Bun
Adapted from NZ Woman’s Weekly magazine
Serves 8

Ingredients:
Boston Bun
1 cup mashed potato (1 medium potato is sufficient to make this)
3/4 cup superfine/caster sugar
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2/3 cup sultanas or raisins
Icing
30 grams butter
1 1/2 cups confectioner’s/icing sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
1/3 cup desiccated coconut

Directions:
Greaseproof a round baking tin and preheat the oven to 180°C/350F.

Place the mashed potato (must be fine, sieve if necessary) into a bowl and combine with the sugar until well mixed.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the potato mixture along with the milk and sultanas.

Fold until the mixture is well combined then pour into the prepared tin.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack.

Prepare the icing while the bread is still warm. Place the butter, sugar and milk into a bowl and beat to combine, it will be a little stiff at first but will give the more you mix.Spread evenly onto the top of the bread and pat down with the coconut.

Allow to cool fully before slicing over tea.

Yield: 1 large bun