hot cross buns
I absolutely love hot cross buns! The day that they begin to appear in supermarkets always fills me with joy. It seems to be getting earlier and earlier every year, but that’s ok with me. They are the first sign that we may be almost through the winter, with spring soon to appear on our doorsteps.
The ones you get at the shops are great, don’t get me wrong. However, there is nothing quite like a homemade hot cross bun. The fresh warm dough, the smell of the spices and orange zest, it’s enough to put a smile on anyone’s face.
I like to make them in batch as I tend to eat a lot of them in one go. Probably too many, to be honest. Sliced in half, toasted to a lovely shade of gold, and smothered in good salty butter. Paired with a lovely cup of tea or coffee, it’s a morning done right!
for the buns
300ml full fat milk
50g butter
500g white bread flour
75g white sugar
1 tsp salt
7g fast action yeast
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
0.5 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
75g sultanas
50g dried peel
zest of 1 orange
1 tbsp sunflower oil
for the crosses
75g plain flour
5 tbsp cold water
for the glaze
1 egg
150g apricot jam
2 tbsp boiling water
method
Start by heating the milk until it starts to steam.
Remove it from the heat and add the butter to the warm milk. Stir it in to let it melt.
Allow this mix to cool to hand temperature (you shouldn’t feel a temperature difference when you dip your finger into it).
Meanwhile, mix the flour, salt, sugar, spices and yeast in a large bowl.
Make a well in the middle and pour in the cooled butter/milk mix.
Beat your egg and tip this into the middle of the mix.
Using a wooden spoon, mix this all together until it forms a loose dough.
Tip your dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5-ish minutes, until it feels smooth and elastic. It will be a sticky mess when you start, but work through it. Eventually, the dough will begin to come together and be more interested in sticking to itself than to the surface, I promise.
Use your sunflower oil to grease a new bowl, and place the dough in the middle.
Cover with cling film and let it rest in a warm area for 1 hour, until it has doubled in size.
Add your sultanas, dried fruit peel and the zest of an orange, and knead the dough again until this is all incorporated.
Cover it with cling film, and let it rise for another hour until it doubles again.
Cut the dough into 12-15 pieces, roughly 75-90g in weight. Try to be as uniform as possible, so that they all cook at the same rate.
Roll these pieces into balls and place into lined baking trays, leaving a little gap between each one to allow them to rise.
Cover the tray loosely (with a tea towel, preferably) and leave the buns for another hour.
Towards the end of the hour, preheat your oven to 180c.
Once they have rested, mix up your egg and brush the tops of your buns.
Next, to make the crosses, mix the flour with 5 tablespoons of tap water to make a paste.
Pour this into a piping bag (or, a ziplock freezer bag with a little hole cut in the corner) and pipe crosses onto the buns.
Bake them for 13-15 minutes, until the tops are a lovely shade of golden brown.
Towards the end of the bake, mix 2 tablespoons of boiling water into your jam to loosen it.
As soon as the buns come out of the oven, brush the tops with your jammy glaze. The warmer the buns, the more this glaze will become sticky and seep into the top of the buns. It’ll also help keep them moist.
Cover the baking tray with your tea towel and let the buns cool whilst covered. This is another way to keep them softer for longer.
Once they are cool enough to eat, stuff some good salty butter inside and devour.
These should last for a few days if stored in an airtight container. I like to slice them in half, lightly toast them and smother them in butter. Delightful!
