By Chelsea Sugar
Page views: 156761Are you up to the challenge? Try making your own hot cross buns this Easter.
33 reviews
Dough:
6 tsp (25g) compressed yeast (or 1 1/2 teaspoons Edmonds Active Yeast)
1 tsp Edmonds Standard Grade Flour (first measure)
1 tsp Chelsea White Sugar (first measure)
1 1/4 cup Meadow Fresh Original Milk, scalded
4 cups Edmonds Standard Grade Flour (second measure)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp mixed spice
1 Tbsp cinnamon
60g Tararua Butter
1/4 cup Chelsea White Sugar, extra (second measure)
1 cup sultanas or sultanas/currants/peel
1 egg, beaten
Cross Paste:
1 cup Edmonds Standard Grade Flour
cold water
Glaze:
1 tablespoon Chelsea Caster Sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon gelatine (optional)
Dough
Crumble Edmonds Active Yeast into a small bowl, add the first measure of Edmonds Standard Grade Flour and Chelsea White Sugar. Mix in the Meadow Fresh Original Milk which has been cooled to blood heat, cover and leave in warm place for 10 mins.
Sift the second measure of Edmonds Standard Grade Flour, salt, mixed spice and cinnamon into a large bowl; rub in the Tararua Butter and add the second measure of Chelsea White Sugar and sultanas.
Add the beaten egg to the sponged yeast mixture. Add yeast/egg mixture into the flour mixture until a soft dough is formed. Knead until light and smooth and no longer sticky.
Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a clean cloth and allow to stand in a warm place until double in bulk (about 40 minutes).
Turn onto a lightly floured surface, punch down and knead dough until smooth and elastic. Divide dough into 16 even-sized pieces - knead each into a round shape. Place on a greased slide tray 1cm apart. Cover and stand in a warm place until well risen (about 10-15 minutes).
Cross Paste
Mix sufficient cold water into the Edmonds Standard Grade Flour to make a soft paste and pipe a cross on each bun (pour mixture into a plastic bag, snip one corner and pipe onto buns).
Bake at 220°C conventional (200°C fan forced) for about 20 minutes.
Glaze
Heat the Chelsea Caster Sugar, water and gelatine (optional) in a saucepan and simmer 1 minute. When the buns are cooked glaze them with the gelatine mixture while still hot.
Great recipe! Super easy and straight forward, followed a couple of the suggestions below and adjusted cook time to 15mins at 200 degrees and also let proof for 2 hours opposed to 40mins - they came out awesome, family loved them (even my mum who isn’t a huge fan of hot crossed buns)
I used this recipe to make hot cross buns for the first time. The buns came out burnt and hard like rocks. But! I made some changes and the buns came out truly excellent after that.
- Be careful with the yeast! I used active yeast and I almost made the mistake of using 25g instead of 7g!
- Soak the dried fruit for 15 minutes in hot water (or juice or rum). This will make them juicy
- I used 1 1/2 cups of milk to make 1 1/4 scolded milk
- Heap the spices, 1Tsp for each is barely enough
- Weigh out 500g of sifted flour instead of using 4 cups. This fixes the liquid to dry ingredients ratio. Using 4 cups led to ~120g of extra flour when I weighed it
- Don't add the dried fruit until AFTER all the kneading; fold in right before dividing the dough
- Let the dough rest for 2 hours instead of 40 minutes. Cinnamon contains natural yeast inhibitors and the extra time is necessary
- Use a stand mixer if you can, and hand-knead once the dough starts getting stretchy. This gives a better dough texture and will save you a lot of work
- On the second round of kneading, knead the dough until the dough can stretch to be thin enough that you can see some light through it without the dough tearing apart
- Let the buns proof / rest for 1 hour instead of 20 minutes
- Bake at 180ºC (fan-forced) or 200ºC (not fan-forced) and check at 15 mins
A lot of these changes have been mentioned by others, but they are critical to making this recipe work. Overall I gave 3 stars because lots of changes were required to make this recipe good. I would give 5 stars if the recipe was updated to incorporate these changes.
Great recipe. Followed instructions and turned out fantastic. Didn’t need as long to cook: I baked it at 200 for 15 mins. Soft, fresh and delicious
I never write reviews but I had to this time! These were perfect - flavour was amazing, texture was perfect, looked superb (if I do say so myself lol) and went down a treat with everyone! I'll definitely be making them again, the only thing I'd change is the amount - I'll have to double the recipe so I can give some to the wider whanau :) Thankyou Chelsea x
Delicious! Came out soft and yummy.
Changes I made
- 2TBS each of all spice & cinnamon
- swapped egg for same size of yoghurt
Dough was very sticky and I added small amounts of flour to dust the board as I kneaded. But don’t add large amounts of flour to make it non sticky.
You want a very soft dough.
I didn’t do the flour cross. I waited till they were cooked. Then put a sugar glaze on them, then made a thick icing sugar paste with lemon juice.
Put into a plastic lunch bag, cut the corner and squeezed a white icing sugar across the buns. PERFECT!
Thanks!
Simple and easy to follow, the buns came out soft and pillowy with just the right amount of spice. I didn't have Sultanas or Raisins to put in so subbed with dried cranberries which are a fave now in our household.
I made these today - more spice a teaspoon of nut meg and more milk to yeast 1 1/2 cups, more fruit I added 1 cup currants and soaked these in milk
Oven temp 190 degrees for 25 mins
Don’t under estimate the kneading process for the last prove that will make or break your bun results - good luck they were worth it
First time I've ever made spiced buns (I didn't put crosses on top). And proud to have done an okay job.
Maybe my oven is hot or something because they were burnt on their bottoms after 15 mins. Next time I'll:
- read the reviews before commencing and add more spice - maybe some nutmeg
- bake at 190-200 (not 220) and check after 15 mins (No fan bake here)
Most of the ingredients are the ones that most people have, I hope the turn out like all you other recipes (amazing)!
Hi I’m an 11 year old and I made these. Tasted very nice but didn’t react to yeast so they were quite dense. Why did this happen?
CHELSEA SUGAR: Hi there, it sounds like your yeast might be inactive / old. We'd recommend trying a fresh packet :)
This was an easy recipe to follow and the results were most successful. The buns were light and full of flavour. However I did add extra liquid as it was apparently too dry. I also left the dough longer than the 40 minutes- closer to 2 hours as we went off to the movies. And I had my husband to knead the dough thoroughly .
Certainly will make again.
My 13 year old used this recipe turned out awesome to our surprise dough was so soft, I told her to keep her hands damp when kneading the dough and DO NOT add extra flour this will make the dough hard (your dough will drink more water and need more flour all day long)
So I followed this recipe to a T, and it did not work the dough came out hard not soft, so now I should of just gone with my gut & added more milk cause 1 1/4 cup of milk sounded wrong to me next time I will add 1 3/4 cup of milk witch will give me the dough I need & it needs more spice, I'm so not happy with this recipe I just wasted a lot of ingredients.
Yum yum yum
Though I add 1 1/2 cups of milk
And 1 cup of chocolate chips .
Hot cross buns all year round!!
Great recipe, my entire family enjoyed these hot cross buns!! If you are using instant dry yeast sachets, I used two of them. Your welcome :)
The tablespoon of spice worked well. I also added some nutmeg as it just tickled the edge of yumminess!! Really easy to make. It didn't prove well the first round but second went well and overall results were fabulous!!!
They look and taste delicious! It was my first time making them and I did come across some trouble with the crosses, I would suggest putting a measurement for the water or saying what consistency the paste should be, but other than that they're perfect!
You need to update the recipe to include the addition of spice in it, made this without reading reviews and was thinking not much spice and had them and they are so missing the spice flavour.
Read these reviews AFTER to then see you've listened to reviews and adjusted, but you should update the recipe with those amounts too.
Waste of ingredients, really really tasteless, won't use this recipe again. I didn't want to give even 1 star but couldn't submit review without grading
1 tsp is not enough spice, unfortunately wouldn't recommend this recipe to anyone.
CHELSEA: thanks so much for the feedback. We've increased the spice to 1 Tbsp and also added 1 Tbsp cinnamon. Enjoy!
I found the recipe easy to follow but a bit hard to accomplish by hand. I recommend doubling or tripling the spice amount.
CHELSEA: thanks for the feedback. We've increased the spice amount. Enjoy!
They were easy enough to make but found they were a bit tasteless. Prefer Countdown hot cross buns to these.
CHELSEA: thanks for the feedback. We've increased the spice amount. Enjoy!
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