posh jam and cream buns

posh jam and cream buns

• 2 Jun 2025

I saw a photo of these Tulameen raspberry, cardamom & mascarpone splits on the Lannan Bakery's instagram page and I thought they looked so cute, I wanted to create my own version. 

Whilst they might be known as 'splits' in Edinburgh, where I'm from they're known as a jam and cream bun or doughnut depending on whether the buns are baked or fried. When I was little, the absolute best jam and cream doughnuts came from Goldstein's Bakery at the Gold Coast. On Sunday morning my Dad would stand in a queue and would come home with dozens of the doughnuts nestled in a pristine white paper bag. The buns were filled with fresh whipped cream rather than mock cream, which was unusual at the time. I loved those doughnuts, but I haven't lived in QLD for a very long time and its been decades since I last ate a jam and cream bun sitting on the beach at Surfers Paradise with my friend Debra, whilst wearing a teeny tiny bikini. I was only 19.

In recreating the buns I used many sources. The bun dough is from the Seasonal maritozzi recipe in Sift by Nicola Lamb. The shaping method and instructions come from Erin Clarkson aka Cloudy Kitchen and of course the decoration was inspired by Lannan Bakery. The buns looked so fancy my sister declared that they were 'posh' hence the name.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 6-8 buns, adapted from a Nicola Lamb recipe with instructions from Cloudy Kitchen. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Posh jam and cream buns – makes 6-8 buns 
Preferment
75g whole milk
1 vanilla pod, scraped
4g caster sugar (about 1½ tsp)
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
3g dry yeast (about 1 tsp)
120g strong bread flour

Second dough
50g whole eggs (about 1)
60g whole milk
120g strong bread flour
4g fine salt (about ¾ tsp)
35g caster sugar
45g butter, softened

Glaze 
1 egg whisked with 1 tsp water or 1-2 tbs cream or melted butter

Vanilla whipped cream - enough for 8 buns
300g cream
20g icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
pinch salt

To serve
Berry jam 
Icing sugar, to dust
fresh raspberries, halved (optional)

Preferment
Heat the milk, vanilla seeds, sugar and citrus zests until simmering. Cool to around 35-40°C, then add the dry yeast and let it sit for 10 minutes until bubbly.
Stir in the strong bread flour to form a stiff dough, and let it rest for 2 hours, covered, in a warm place. The dough should be risen, very fragrant and airy. You can keep the preferment in the fridge for up to 3 days and use it anytime. If you are using it from cold, it will take longer to reactivate and the other ingredients must be warm to help it along.

To mix the second dough, add the egg and milk to a mixer bowl. Tear up the preferment and add to the bowl, along with the flour, salt and sugar. Mix on a medium speed for 8-10 minutes, until medium gluten development is reached - this is when you can pull on the dough and it stays together but it is still quite fragile. You can take it further than this, but this is the minimum requirement before adding the butter.

Add the soft butter, then mix for a further 5-8 minutes on a medium speed until full gluten development is reached.  Cover the dough and leave to proof for 2 hours or until puffy and somewhat doubled in size. My dough was very sticky so I did 3 sets of stretch and folds every 30 minutes and then I placed the dough in the fridge for an overnight rise.

Line a baking tray with baking paper. Turn the dough out onto a surface and knead a few times. Divide the dough into 6-8 equal portions, then shape each into a ball.

To shape the buns

Take a ball of dough and flatten slightly, then roll into a sausage about 4” (10cm) long, making sure it is even and the ends are rounded. Place onto the baking sheet. Repeat the shaping with the remaining pieces of dough, spacing the rolls out well on the baking sheet. Cover the baking sheets lightly with plastic wrap and leave to rise for 30 to 45 minutes (will be slightly longer if your dough is cold), or until puffy, and a small indentation is left when poked gently with your finger. (My buns took 1½ hours to proof in my cold kitchen).

While the buns are rising, preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Brush the buns with the egg wash, melted butter or cream. Bake on the centre rack of the oven for 18 to 20 minutes , rotating the trays half way through, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Filling and assembly
Place the cream, icing sugar, vanilla bean paste and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer or large bowl. Whip until medium peaks form. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a star tip.

Cut each bun vertically down the centre, making sure not to cut the whole way through. Open the buns up a bit, then spoon or pipe 1-2 tsps of jam inside. Pipe or spoon the cream filling into the middle of each bun and then pipe blobs of berry jam or place a few halved raspberries onto the cream. Just before serving, dust the buns with icing sugar.

Best served the day that they are made. I froze the leftover buns, defrosted them and filled them to order with jam and cream when the time arose.

Well these were a hit with the neighbours and worth making a batch of rhubarb and raspberry jam and 2 batches of the preferment when the first batch failed to rise. I'm sure I'll be making another batch of these posh jam and cream buns quite soon.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian