John Whaite’s mincemeat & marzipan buns

1. To make the dough, place the flours in a bowl and stir in the salt and sugar. Add the yeast and stir it through the flour. Add 150ml room-temperature water, the milk, egg and butter and mix well with a wooden spoon or your hands, until you have a scraggy dough. Either knead by hand until the mixture is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, or use a freestanding electric mixer with a dough hook attachment, which will take 5-6 minutes. See Cook’s tips, below.

2. Place the dough into an oiled bowl, roll the dough in the oil to coat, then cover and allow to rise until doubled in size – usually an hour but it could be more if your kitchen is cool. To make the dough easier to handle once risen, chill it in the freezer for 10 minutes before starting step 3.

3. Grease a 12-hole muffin tray with some oil. Once the dough has risen, flour the worktop and roll the dough out into a 45x45cm square. Spread the mincemeat over the dough, scatter the marzipan cubes, then sprinkle with 1 tsp cinnamon. Roll up into a tight spiral, using a pastry brush to dust any excess flour away from the underneath of the dough as you roll. Pinch the seam together, then pat the dough to make it onto a more even log in length and width. Trim off the messy ends, then cut into 12 slices – the best way is to use a clean piece of unflavoured dental floss to ‘garotte’ the dough spiral into portions. Place each slice, spiral-side up, into the muffin tray. Cover with a clean tea towel, then allow to rise for another 30 minutes – 1 hour, until puffed up.

4. Preheat the oven to 220°C, gas mark 7. Bake the buns for 12-15 minutes, or until risen and golden. Remove from the tin immediately and place onto a wire rack to cool. For the topping, mix together the icing sugar and orange juice to a thick but pourable icing. Ice the cooled buns and dust with a little extra cinnamon before serving. These are best eaten on the day of baking; see Cook’s tips for more info.