Hot Cross Buns - Mark Two

I had been hankering after these hot cross buns having made them for Good Friday a couple of weeks ago. I amended the recipe slightly. I didn't put the paste crosses on this time but I did make the glaze.

Ingredients:
Buns
300g white strong bread flour
200g wholemeal strong bread flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
75g raisins
50g mixed peel
110 caster sugar
50g butter
250ml milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Paste:
80g plain flour
2 tbsp sugar
100ml water

Glaze:

1 tbsp milk

1 tsp marmalade

1 tsp brown sugar

METHOD

Sift flour and spices into a large bowl and mix in the yeast, fruit, peel and sugar. 

Melt butter, stir in milk and vanilla extract and heat until tepid (I did this in the microwave. I forgot last time and maybe that is why my buns didn't rise).

Whisk into egg, add to flour mixture, form a dough and knead on a floured surface for 10min until smooth and elastic. 

Leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Rising with the help of a hot water bottle!

Mix the paste, bung it in a piping bag (or a plastic freezer bag with one corner snipped off) and pipe a cross on each bun. 

I made the crosses by cutting into the bread this time rather than making the paste.

Bake at 180C for 10min, reduce the heat to 150C and bake for a further 15min.

Lightly brush with the glaze and cool on a rack.

We had one last night warm from the oven with a bit of butter and then toasted this morning. They really are lovely, full of flavour with a texture that is hard to describe. They are thick but also light and fluffy.

Easter Treats

On Good Friday we started the day with a toasted home made hot cross bun each with butter and honey and some toasted brioche that my Mum had made too. We then decided to exchange Easter gifts as we were going away for the weekend and with hot weather forecast I didn't think it was a good idea to take chocolate in a hot car. 

I bought Mr VST some of his favourite Lindt Lindor eggs, a minimally packaged Cadbury's egg with two solid eggs inside and finally, and my favourite, chocolate egg and soldiers from Hotel Chocolat. 

I am known to graze on my chocolate, nibbling on it over time. I was given a bag of mini eggs, a bag of smartie eggs, a delicious lindor egg and a chocolate egg sandwich from Hotel Chocolate - chocolate heaven!

We also had a box of chocolate half eggs filled with different flavours from my Mum as well as a large dark chocolate egg and some delicious little praline and orange filled mini eggs too. 

I had read Felicity Cloake's perfect hot cross buns article which of course came too late for my bun making (and I'm pretty sure I won't be faffing around with milk and bruising cardamom). I noticed that quite a few of the people commenting recommended eating hot cross buns with cheese so I thought I'd try it and it was awesome!

 

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns. You're lucky you can't hear me singing that! I'm not the best of singers. I hope I'm a better baker than I am singer, I think I am. Anyway, I decided that I would make my own hot cross buns this year for Good Friday. I'm not someone who eats these all year round even though they are available in the supermarket regardless of when Easter is.

I did a quick online search for recipes and came across this one from The Times online archive. Having looked at a few other recipes I decided that life was too short to peel my own lemon, orange and lime so I bought some Italian mixed peel instead. I also chose to use 150g of wholemeal strong bread flour and mix it with 300g of white strong bread flour to give it a bit more flavour.

They were surprisingly easily to make, just a spiced bread dough with fruit really and then of course, there is the cross on top. I'm sure Mr VST asks every year "How do they make the cross?" and this year I could answer him! It is a surprisingly easy, just a sugar, flour and water paste.

The dough was very sticky and I kneaded a lot of flour into it. I would probably use 500g of flour next time. The recipe also suggested, and I followed it, breaking the dough into 12 and then leaving the buns to rise. I would just leave the whole lot to rise and then divide it up afterwards as they didn't rise very well. 

It was too late to make the glaze so I just brushed them with milk before putting them into the oven. They were a little on the heavy side I thought. Mr VST had one pretty much straight from the oven, un-toasted, and enjoyed it. I had one toasted for breakfast and it was surprisingly good. My boss had one un-toasted and said it was a bit on the heavy side. We will be finishing them off, toasted, for breakfast tomorrow. I think I would add a bit more spice and I might be tempted to make them again before next Easter.