Hot Cross Buns
With every big holiday came a lot of preparation in my family home. My Mom had to make everything, make a lot of it and make it perfect. Now we’re doing that at our home.
Przed każdymi dużymi świętami w moim rodzinnym domu było dużo przygotowań. Moja Mama musiała zrobić wszystko, zrobić tego dużo i robić to doskonale. Teraz mamy to samo w naszym domu.
I had to pretty much give up blogging right before Easter. I just couldn’t get enough sleep. But I didn’t give up on baking. I used a chance to share with my neighbours at a playstreet.
Every last Sunday of the month we close part of our street to the traffic and create a safe space for our kids to play in. Kids get to know each other, neighbours get to chat and share. Exactly, share. While the reasoning part of my brain has been somewhat suboptimal recently, I managed to sum a couple things together: England + Easter + baking = hot cross buns.
I ended up joining two recipes: I used the dough from Justin Gelatly’s “Bread Cake Doughnut Pudding” and the glaze with cross dough from Emmanuel Hadjiandreou’s “How To Make Bread” (sources). I once tried Justins cross mixture and it was a bit rubbery. The recipe for glaze was something I liked from the very beginning, with all the spices and fruit. I chose Justin’s dough for simplicity – Emmanuel is a fan of series of frequent but small interactions and I’m not, not all the time at least.
Hot cross buns
Planning
The buns aren’t very time consuming. They pretty much require 4-5 hours work and waiting before baking. You can make the glaze in advance. I made it before Easter and kept in a fridge as a lot came out. I reused it two weeks later, still in a good shape.
You’ll need a brush for the glaze, two baking trays, some baking paper. I recommend a mixer as working the butter into the dough requires a lot of effort. You will also need an icing nozzle, round, about 4 mm wide, for the cross.
Ingredients
This gives about 12 buns 120g each
The glaze
I’m providing the ingredients as they are in the recipe, but it’s enough for like three or four servings. Or even more. And believe me, you will want to repeat it over and over again. I’m preparing for the third batch now.
250 g water
150 g sugar
1/2 unwaxed orange, cut in 4 pieces
1/2 unwaxed lemon, cut in 2 pieces
2 cinnamon sticks
5 cloves
3 star anise
The glaze
The dough
Stage 1
- 225 g strong white wheat flour
- 300 g water
- 70 g dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground mixed spice. I don’t know what this means, really. First time I used our homemade gingerbread spice, second time – garam masala. Both worked well
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- zest of two oranges. Unwaxed ones are strongly preferred. Remember to wash them thoroughly before grating the zest. I get organic Cypriot oranges from a local store which are quite pricey (£4/kg), but are delicious and the zest is so aromatic that I only use one
- 30 g black treacle (molasses). It gives a bit of aroma but it feels it’s here mainly for colour
- 25 g crumbled fresh yeast
Stage 2
- 400 g strong white bread flour
- 2 egg yolks
- 20 g fine sea salt
- 125 g soft unsalted butter, chopped small
Stage 3
- 125 g chopped mixed peel. I used the Cypriot oranges to make my own peel and it is aromatic enough to add about half of this
- 4 pieces of stem ginger, chopped small. Stem ginger is pieces of ginger in a sugary syrup. If you can’t get it, you can use candied ginger, just soak it before using warm water
- 1 tablespoon syrup from the ginger jar. Nothing bad will happen if you don’t have it
- 250 g raisins. I strongly recommend sultanas
The cross dough
- 90 g water
- 40 g vegetable oils
- 100 g plain flour
- 2 g salt
Preparation
Prepare the glaze: put all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to boil. Set aside to cool down. It will continue getting infused with all the aromas
Mix water, crumbled yeast and black trickle in one bowl and set aside
In the mixer bowl put flour, spices, orange zest, dark brown sugar and mix them together while the wet mixture is getting active
Add the wet mixture and mix well. It will become very runny and it is fine
Leave it for an hour. It will get a bit frothy
Add stage 2 flour and salt and mix till it’s incorporated. Then add the yolks and gradually add the butter. Keep mixing till it becomes a nice smooth dough
Without waiting, add all the ingredients from stage 3 and mix them a bit more till they get more or less evenly distributed in the dough
Leave it for 2 hours to rise. If you are making a double portion, just remember – keep it in a big bowl
Sometimes big mixer is not big enough
Split the dough into 120 g pieces (I once made 100 g pieces, I could share with more people even though they felt a bit too small)
Splitting the dough
Roll the buns and put them on a baking paper on a baking tray. Remember to leave some space between the buns as they will expand. I left 2-3 cm space
Rolled buns
Cover the trays with clingfilm or a kitchen towel and leave till they double in size or so. It will take about an hour
Before baking set the oven to 160 C degrees with a fan or around 180 C degrees without
Prepare the cross dough, put it in a piping bag with a round nozzle about 4 mm wide and make crosses on the buns
Making the crosses
Bake the buns for about 14-15 minutes. While the recipe says to bake till they are golden-brown, I think the cross stands out much better when they are brown-dark brown
Take the ready buns out of the oven and after about 2-3 minutes glaze them with your glaze. Use a lot of it. This will give them a lovely gloss and softness to them
Glazing the buns
They are very sweet, but the sourness from citruses and spiciness of ginger levels it off a bit. They are an explosion of various aromas and are so moreish you simply cannot stop eating at one or two.
Hot cross buns – the crumb
The first time I made them, I shared with my neighbours, the second time – with my work colleagues. For some reason in both cases half would vanish into thin air before I took any out of the house. It’s a mistery.
