Hot Cross Buns
These hot cross buns are made with Earl Grey soaked sultanas and currants, orange and lemon zest, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and a hint of nutmeg. This is a very fruity mixture with 300g of dried fruit to 400g flour, which I think is the way that a hot cross bun should be.
I started a micro bakery from my kitchen for Easter week, baking hot cross buns for Tierra Verde, the local café where I work. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it and although it was hard work, it gave me a small insight into the baking business. As the week went on, I adapted and developed my recipe after a number of taste tests from my family and became much faster with my routine. I even surprised myself and managed to make three batches of buns simultaneously!
And then disaster struck…everything had been going so smoothly, having managed to juggle three batches at once and then within a few minutes, I took two batches out of the oven too soon. I thought they were ready as they were nicely browned on top, so I left them to cool and then realised my mistake. Both batches had soggy bottoms and having watched many episodes of Bake Off, I knew that they would have to go straight in the bin. I couldn’t let the café down as I knew that Easter Saturday (the last day of baking) would be a busy day, so I had a ten minute cry, pulled myself together and baked another two batches.
After that unexpected incident, I was then very ready for the week to end. But in some ways I am glad it did happen because it stopped me from getting complacent and has made me ready for my next baking adventure!
For the glaze: (prepare the night before)
250ml water
150g caster sugar
1/2 orange, cut into four
1/2 lemon, cut into two
2 cinnamon sticks
5 cloves
3 star anise
- Bring to the boil and cool in the fridge overnight.
For the dough:
5g (1 1/2 tsp) active dry yeast
40g caster sugar
200ml warm water
200g plain flour
150g sultanas
150g currants
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
12 cloves, freshly ground in a pestle and mortar
3 oranges, zested
3 lemons, zested
200g strong white bread flour
2g (1/2 tsp) salt
90g unsalted butter
1 large egg, lightly beaten
- The night before, soak the sultanas and currants in lukewarm Earl Grey tea and set aside ready to be used the following day. Drain the fruit and pat dry with kitchen paper then lightly coat them in flour - they will be a bit sticky but not to worry as they will be plump and juicy and won’t inhibit the dough.
- In a mixing bowl, weigh out the yeast and sugar, adding the water and stir until well dissolved. Add the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. This is the pre-ferment. Cover and leave it for 30 minutes in a warm space until doubled in size.
- While the pre-ferment rises, weight out the spices and zest and mix them together with the drained fruit.
- In another mixing bowl, mix the bread flour and salt together. Gently rub the cold butter into this mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs.
- Now add the egg and the pre-ferment to the flour and butter mixture and mix until well combined and there are no dry, floury bits. Cover and leave it to rest for 10 minutes.
- Knead the dough for a couple of minutes and then combine the fruit and spice mix until well incorporated.
- Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes.
- Lightly flour your work surface and divide the dough into 16 equal portions.
- Roll each portion into a ball and place on a prepared baking sheet, leaving a little space between them, allowing them to rise and form the batch bake. This will take about 30-40 minutes for quite large buns.
- Preheat the oven to 220C and place a roasting tray at the bottom of the oven to preheat.
- Make the cross mixture with equal parts of flour and water (for one batch about 50g each). Fill a piping bag and pipe continuous lines across the buns.
- Place the buns in the oven and pour a large glass of water into the preheated roasting tray - this will create steam and a nice environment for the buns to develop their crust. Bake the buns for 20-25 minutes until the bottoms are well browned - this might mean that the tops will need to be covered with some baking parchment to stop them from burning.
- Remove from the oven and brush generously with the glaze in two or three layers. Leave them to cool and soak up the glaze on the baking sheet before moving them to a wire rack.
