Looking for a deliciously satisfying way to spend your Sunday afternoon? Why not get your baking apron out and try our homemade hot cross buns recipe?
Whether you give ‘em to your daughters, give ‘em to your sons,’ or just scoff them all yourself, you’ll enjoy your hot cross buns all the more, knowing they’re homemade and free of single-use plastics.
Once you’ve used our hot cross buns recipe, there’s no going back to shop-bought.
What you’ll need
For the buns:
- – 300ml whole milk / Oato dairy alternative
- – 50g butter
- – 500g strong bread flour
- – 1 tsp salt
- – 80g caster sugar
- – 1 tbsp sunflower oil
- – 7g easy-blend yeast
- – 1 egg beaten
- – 80g sultanas
- – 50g mixed peel
- – Zest of 1 orange
- – 1 apple peeled, cored and finely chopped
- – 1 tsp ground cinnamon
For the cross:
- – 80g plain flour
For the glaze:
- – 4 tbsp apricot jam
Hot Cross Bun Recipe
- 1. Heat your choice of milk in a pan until it comes to a boil, then remove it from the heat, add the butter and leave it to cool.
- 2. In a large mixing bowl, add the strong bread flour, salt, caster sugar and yeast, mix thoroughly with your fingers, and form a well in the centre. Once the milk and butter have cooled to a safe temperature to handle, pour them into the well and add the beaten egg. Use a large wooden spoon and your hands to mix until you have a sticky dough.
- 3. Tip the mixture onto a floured surface and knead. Repeat for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic, and all of your stress has gone. Ahhhhh! Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour or until it’s more or less doubled in size.
Top tip: When the dough is ready, you should be able to leave a dent in it with your finger.
- 4. Add the sultanas, mixed peel, chopped apple and cinnamon into the bowl with the dough and knead everything together until the fruit is evenly distributed. We don’t want anyone complaining about a lack of sultanas! Cover with the tea towel for an additional hour or until it doubles in size again.
- 5. Divide the dough into a baker’s dozen (13 even pieces), and roll them into smooth balls on a lightly floured surface. Arrange the buns on baking trays lined with greaseproof paper, leaving enough room for them to expand. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave them for an hour to prove.
- 6. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Mix the plain flour with 5 tbsp water to make the paste for the cross, adding a bit at a time until you have a thick paste. Spoon the paste into a piping bag with a small nozzle. Remove the tea towel from the buns and pipe your crosses across your buns. Feel free to get creative and add your own designs if you get bored halfway through piping.
- 7. Bake the buns for 20 minutes on the middle shelf until they are golden brown. Gently heat the apricot jam to melt, brush it over the top of the buns and leave them to cool – if you can stand the wait!
- 8. Now for the best part, tuck in!
Hungry for more?
If you like the sound of our hot cross buns recipe, there’s plenty more where that came from! Discover more tasty, waste-fighting Modern Milkman recipes here:
- – Winter soup recipe
- – Creamy Boulangère potato recipe
- – Carrot and beetroot salad recipe
- – Overnight oats recipe
- – Apple sauce recipe
Join our milkround
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