Learning to make bread - month three: hot cross buns

Perhaps not technically a bread, but the recipe requires yeast, so I say it counts.  I love hot cross buns; delicious and versatile, they can quite legitimately be eaten for breakfast, elevenses, afternoon tea, or supper - take your pick.  Hot cross bun season signifies that spring is well and truly on its way, and my bread-making resolution seemed a perfect opportunity to learn how to make them.  Easter being late this year, I thought nevertheless that the beginning of April was a perfectly respectable time to start baking hot cross buns (and gave me time to practice before Easter!).

I used the recipe from the Great British Book of Baking;  there's a Paul Hollywood recipe on the BBC website, the basics of which are similar, and Felicity Cloake compares a number of different methods to come up with her take on how to cook the perfect hot cross bun.

There's a good history of hot cross buns here.  It doesn't mention anything about ancient Greece or Rome though; according to the British Book of Baking, the ancient Egyptians offered similar small round yeast cakes to the goddess of the moon, and the ancient Greeks and Romans made them for the goddess of light; it was the Saxons, apparently, who added the cross.  There's a detailed reading selection on the history of the hot cross bun here.

The recipe I followed used mixed dried fruit, with nutmeg and mixed spice for added flavour.  Making these buns was a process that required time, but was well worth the wait; the buns are delicious.  I've already made a second batch and will be making more over Easter weekend; in fact, they are so good I may even have to extend hot cross bun season beyond Easter!



Ingredients mixed and ready for kneading

Kneaded and ready to rise



The risen dough is knocked back then divided into twelve buns

I left the dough for about one and a half hours to rise.  You then knock the air out of it, and divide into twelve buns, which you place on the prepared tray.  A large plastic bag is then placed over the tray and it is left for about 45 minutes, until the buns have about doubled in size.  However, the British Book of Baking explained that as an alternative you could put the tray (in its bag) in the fridge overnight.  I went for the latter, which then meant I had buns ready to go in the oven first thing in the morning.  All I had to do was add the cross.  This is made from flour and water, which forms a paste.  Rather than using a piping bag, I rolled small bits of the paste between my hands to make the lines which I then laid over the buns.


Glaze as soon as they are out of the oven

Still warm from the oven...what a treat.