Homemade Hot Cross buns

There's nothing better than homemade Hot Cross buns! With the lead up to Easter, Chris has been busy making lots of Hot Cross Buns and I have to say they are soooo good!! I think he has made about 4 dozen so far, both fruit and chocolate. Lots for the people at his work and lots for us too, of course! The photos above are of the chocolate Hot Cross buns (the fruit ones already disappeared before we had a chance to take a photo ;)) Just thought I'd post the recipe that we use to make them for all of you that are interested:

HOT CROSS BUNS

INGREDIENTS:

DRY
675g bread flour
14g instant yeast
chopped peel from 1 lemon
chopped peel from 1 orange
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt

WET
437g warm milk
65g honey
2 eggs, warm

OTHER
80g soft butter
1 cup sultanas

CROSSES
170gms flour
50gms oil
150gms water


METHOD:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients in the one bowl.
2. In a seperate bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together.
3. Combine the wet and dry and ingredients.
4. Knead for about 8 minutes.
5. Add butter and sultanas, knead until combined (warning: very sticky!)
6. Leave to rise for about an hour.
7. De-gas and shape into buns about 65gms each.
8. Arrange on tray and leave to proof for about an hour or until doubled in size.
9. Whilst proofing, preheat oven to 190C
10. Combine ingredients for crosses, add enough water for the mixture to be piped.
11. Pipe crosses onto buns.
12. Bake in oven for about 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Change these into chocolate hot cross buns by omitting peel and sultanas and adding a cup of chocolate chips (my favourite!!) Add a tablespoon of cocoa to the piping bag mixture to make chocolate crosses.

This recipe adapted from the Joe Pastry website.
Submitted to YeastSpotting