Hot Cross Buns

It turns out, I like them after all.

Photo: Ruth Barry

I've had a lifelong aversion to dried fruit in baked goods—no Christmas cake, no pain au raisin, no fruit scones. I like raisins and sultanas chewy and sticky, maybe with a handful of nuts. I’ll tolerate them in a cookie. But in other bakes, they’re usually plumped halfway back to life. I’d much rather just eat grapes.

That’s why I thought I didn’t like hot cross buns. I’d tried them, of course, but only miserable supermarket versions with gummy dough and puffy raisins. When they kept turning up in my Instagram feed, praised in all corners, I started to wonder if I'd missed something. It turns out that the ones I bought from Safeway in 1999 weren’t the gold standard. But homemade soft buns—slightly sweetened with brown sugar, flecked with orange zest, raisins, sultanas, and currants, and fragranced with cinnamon and allspice to smell just like Christmas—are excellent. I would have been happily eating them for many years, plump raisins and all.

For this recipe, I use a stand mixer with a dough hook. The mixing time is relatively short—for the softest buns, you don’t want to develop the gluten as much as you would for baking bread. I like to prepare the dough the day before I bake the buns, storing it in the fridge overnight. The amount of fruit you use is flexible. If you like a bun stuffed with fruit, add more. You can just as easily reduce it. The buns are best warm from the oven, slathered with butter. Perhaps add a spoonful of marmalade or jam. If you prefer not to have sticky fingers, you can egg-wash the buns before baking them instead of glazing them once they come out of the oven. Split any leftover buns the next day and revive them in the toaster.

Photo: Ruth Barry

Hot cross buns

Makes 12

• 500 grams (roughly 3 ½ cups) all-purpose flour

• 80 grams (2.8 ounces) cold unsalted butter

• 60 grams (2 ounces) light-brown sugar

• 10 grams (1 ¾ teaspoons) kosher salt

• 7 grams (2 ¼ teaspoons) dried active yeast

• ¾ teaspoon cinnamon

• ¼ teaspoon allspice

• Finely grated zest from ½ an orange

• 1 egg + 1 yolk

• 270 grams (9 ½ ounces) whole milk

• 30 grams (1 ounce) raisins

• 30 grams (1 ounce) sultanas

• 20 grams (¾ ounce) currants

For the crosses:

• 50 grams (1 ¾ ounces) all-purpose flour

• 50 grams (1 ¾ ounces) water

For the glaze:

• 2 tablespoons whole milk or cream

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• Pinch of salt

Equipment:

• Stand mixer with dough hook

• Piping bag with small nozzle

• Pastry brush

Put the raisins, sultanas, and currants into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let them steep for about ten minutes, then drain and spread on a piece of kitchen paper to dry off.

Add the flour and butter to the bowl of a stand mixer, and rub the butter into the flour until it looks sandy. Add the sugar, salt, dried yeast, cinnamon, allspice, and orange zest and stir well. Add the egg and yolk, then fix the mixer bowl in place and attach the dough hook.

In a small saucepan or milk pan, warm the milk to around body temperature. With the mixer on speed two, slowly trickle the milk into the dry ingredients. If the dough is struggling to pick up all the dry bits at the bottom of the bowl, briefly increase the speed to help it along, but drop back down to speed two once a dough is formed. Knead for five minutes.

At the end of kneading time, drop the speed to one and add the raisins, sultanas, and currants. Mix very gently until well dispersed.

Transfer the whole lot to an oiled bowl or Tupperware box. Leave to rise until doubled in volume. Knock back the dough, return to the box and cover, then place in the fridge overnight.

Remove the dough from the fridge and transfer to a clean surface lightly dusted with flour. Divide into 12 equal pieces, around 85 grams each. Form a sort of cage-like claw with your hand and roll the pieces into rounds. Use as little flour as possible while forming the buns. Line a baking sheet with parchment and place the buns in three rows of four, quite close to one another. I like to flatten them slightly with the flat of my hand. Cover with an oiled sheet of cling film and allow to rise until well puffed. A finger gently pressed on the surface of a bun should leave an indentation. If the dough springs back, give it a bit more time. The buns should all be touching.

Preheat the oven to 190ºC (375ºF).

Photo: Ruth Barry

For the crosses, mix together the flour and water to make a paste and transfer to a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle. Pipe long horizontal lines across all the buns, then do the same but vertically this time. Bake in the center of the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

While the buns bake, boil the milk or cream with the sugar and salt. Once the buns are baked, use a pastry brush to paint the glaze all over the buns. Transfer the buns to a cooling rack. Serve warm.