Saturday 11 April 2009

Hot Cross Buns


Yes, I'm a day late with these, but they're so good that I'd make them again immediately (perhaps without the crosses) just as a good fruit bun.

I followed Dan Lepard's recipe for hot cross buns here, with a few minor modifications. I'm going to give my ingredients list, but since I followed Dan's recipe exactly for the method, I suggest you visit his forums for the method.

Hot Cross Buns (I made 12 rather than 9)
Ingredients
75g butter, melted
2 level tsp mixed spice
300g strong white flour
100g wholemeal flour
1 tsp fine salt
zest 1 lemon
2 tsp (I was generous here) easy-blend dry yeast
275ml barely warm whole milk (I used semi-skimmed as that's what I had in)
200g raisins
3 tbsp golden syrup


Risen dough - it was larger than it seems in this picture.



Shaping the buns - kneading them at the same time.



One hand doing the kneading.


Shaped, prior to proving.


Risen after about 3 1/2 hours (I had to go out, and that's how long they got - I really think it helped with the texture of the buns - I made the same recipe last year but they were much denser than this time round).


With the flour and water paste piped on to form the crosses. This year I made the paste in a small bowl, which allowed me to beat out the lumps before I transferred it to a plastic bag with the corner snipped off to make a piping bag. This worked much better than last years paste where I attempted to make it in the plastic bag - the lazy approach doesn't work!


Baked to perfection. I started the buns at gas 6, as specified in the recipe, but then after 10 minutes I turned it down to gas 5 (recalling the burnt incident of last year) and left them a futher 15 minutes. I then turned them over and gave them 10 more minutes. I felt they were pretty much perfectly cooked.

I loved the texture of these hot cross buns. The crumb is light and moist and packed with the perfect amount of juicy raisins. The spice is a subtle but delicious background note along with the lemon zest.


Gorgeous shiny hot cross bun with glaze. These were really successful. The texture was perfect and the taste was great. I think that next year I might add a little chopped mixed peel and perhaps a bit more spice, although Dan mentions that spice retards the action of the yeast.

I'm really looking forward to eating the ones that made it to the freezer (sadly not all that many!). I'd really recommend making these, they're great.

1 comment:

Snooky doodle said...

these look awesome! wish I could grab one

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