When you were a kid did you learn to play the recorder in music class? And then, did you learn to play a very breathy and staccato version of the song “Hot Cross Buns”? I certainly did, and I feel like a lot of other children across America did too. And that was my only interaction with hot cross buns until last year when Ryan and I were in Wales and we went crazy buying pastries. This year, I tried to step it up a notch and make my own hot cross buns.
So hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday (today). From my very brief Wikipedia research, hot cross buns don’t appear to be a big tradition in the US – however there are lots of American recipes for them. The difference I noticed is that American recipes tend to make the cross from icing and other recipes tend to make the cross from a flour based paste. I decided to align with my Welsh experience and make the paste. Feel free to make icing though, because who doesn’t love icing?
I will say, if you make this recipe don’t try to start this at 7:30 at night after a long day at work. Everything needs to be brought to room temperature. Also, this recipe needs two hours of rising time, plus the regular work of mixing, kneading, and shaping the dough. As well there’s also the actual baking time. Finally, when it says preheat the oven you should actually turn the oven on, not just type in the numbers but then forget to press start. Seriously, I stayed up until about 11:30 working on these (which is wildly late for me on a school night). I literally fell asleep during some of the rising time and was thankful for noisy timers.
But the next morning, I was pleased I had made these because they made a delicious breakfast. The buns themselves are a slightly sweet bread spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins. You can also use currants, golden raisins, or go wild and throw in some other mixed fruits. I only used raisins because I was being cheap and didn’t want to buy multiple packages of dried fruit. Sorry, it’s the truth. You go with what works best for you though. Also know, I think currants would be kind of delicious. These buns are also delicious lightly toasted, or warmed slightly, and then slathered with butter. It’s mild but a little sweet and overall very nice for breakfast.
Final thing, I know I’ve said it before with other posts and I’ll say it again: sometimes you have to trust yourself over the recipe. The recipe I was working with said to slowly mix 5 tablespoons of water into 2/3 cup of flour to make a thick paste that you eventually pipe over the buns. Well for me, I reached that perfect paste consistency after about 3.5 tablespoons but I kept going with the water. This gave me a super liquidy mix that I feel flowed out of the piping bag too quickly. It also made subtle crosses on the top of these buns. Flavor wise it’s completely fine, but I recommend making a thicker paste so your finished products will have more defined crosses. Learn from my mistakes friends!
Anyway, whether you eat these buns, chocolate eggs, or jelly beans I hope you have a lovely Easter weekend.
Adapted from King Arthur Flour and BBC Good Food.
Messy level: What’s great about this is that all of the ingredients can easily be kneaded together in the bowl of a stand mixer. However, I do recommend taking the dough out and putting it on the counter when kneading in the dried fruit. It’s just easier to ensure you don’t over work the dough and that everything gets mixed. Overall, I’d call this mildly messy but not crazy at all.
- ¼/ 59 ml cup apple juice
- 1 cup/ 156 grams dried fruit (you can do a mix of raisins, golden raisins, and dried currants)
- 1¼ cup/ 295 ml milk, room temperature
- 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
- 6 tablespoons/ 85 g butter, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- ¼ cup/ 53 grams light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1¾ teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 4½/ 539 grams cups all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup flour (can substitute some confectioners sugar for the flour)
- up to 5 tablespoons of water
- 3 tablespoons apricot jam
- Grease a 10x10" or 9x13" pan with butter.
- Mix the apple juice and raisins in a microwave safe bowl. Cover the bowl and heat for 1-2 minutes, or until the raisins are very warm and have absorbed some of the juice. Set the bowl aside to come to room temperature.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook (or a bowl, spoon, and your hands), mix together the milk, eggs, butter, yeast, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, and flour. Mix until soft and elastic.
- Turn the dough on to a floured surface. Knead in the raisins. If dough gets too sticky you can also work in a bit more flour as you knead.
- Put the dough in a large greased bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean tea towel.
- Let the dough rise of 1 hour.
- Divide the dough into 12 pieces (about the size of a pool ball). Use your hands to roll them in the ball. Place them in your prepared pan.
- Cover the pan with plastic wrap or a clean tea towel. Let the dough rise for 1 hour or until the dough balls are touching each other.
- When the dough has been rising for 50 minutes, preheat your oven to 375°F/190°C.
- Now prepare the cross paste. Put the flour in a small bowl. Mix in the water one tablespoon at a time until you have a thick, squeezable paste. You might not need all 5 tablespoons.
- Transfer the paste to a pastry bag with a small nozzle, or to a plastic bag with a tiny corner cut off. Pipe the paste in line along each row of buns, then repeat in the other direction to make crosses
- Bake the buns for 20-30 minutes or until they are golden brown.
- Take the buns out of the oven and let cool slightly.
- Heat the apricot jam in a small saucepan over low heat. The jam is hot enough when it is melted and spreadable. While the jam is warm, spread it over the top of the buns. Let it cool.
- Serve the buns warm, toasted, or slightly reheated. Lovely with more jam or butter!
