Fruity, spiced, light and yet still with that destinctive moist denseness of bought ones!
- 1 cup milk (just warmer than luke warm)
- ½ cup sugar
- 3 tsp yeast
- 60 g butter (melted)
- 3 cups plain flour
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 1½ cups sultanas (or your desired dried fruit)
- 1 tea bag (I love using a twinings chai one but any will do)
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 3 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp butter
- t tbsp golden syrup
Mix together milk, sugar and yeast then set aside until nice and frothy. While you are waiting for that, boil the kettle. Chuck the teabag in a bowl with the dried fruit then cover with boiling water and set aside to plump up.
Bung the yeast mix, flour, cinnamon, cloves and melted butter into a stand mixer with a dough hook and beat the crappers out of it until it comes together into a silky smooth ball. Chuck in an oiled, covered bowl and set aside somewhere warm until it has doubled in size. The timing of this will vary wildly depending on your climate but for me it usually takes between half and hour to an hour.
Drain your fruit really really well. Pop the dough back into the stand mixer and use it to mix the fruit in. Divide the mix into 15 and roll into balls. Arrange in a baking dish so they are nicely snuggled up next to eachother then cover with clingwrap.
*****If you are wanting to make these the night before, put these in the fridge now then you can cross, bake and glaze them in the morning*****
If not doing the night before, set these back in your warm place for another half hour to hour or until they have done a nice bit of growing while your oven preheats to 160 deg cel.
Mix up the additional flour and water to make a thin paste and pip crosses onto buns. Pop in the oven until nicely golden on top and sound hollow when tapped. Pop the butter and syrup in a mug and zap in the microwave to melt. Brush onto top of buns.
Taaaaadaaaa!!!! Happy Easter!
If you are looking for scrumptious but less traditional check out this recipe…
The Ramblings
Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns, one a penny, two a penny, Hot Cross Buns!!!!!
Gotcha with the earworm? It’s only fair, ever since Hazel’s birthday when she was gifted a xylophone, that’s what has been stuck in my head as its all I seem to remember from primary school music lessons. Whoops! Sorry Mrs Bassingthwaighte!
Anywho, nothing much to add today, so shan’t bore you. Hope you love these and enjoy a very happy Easter filled with far too much chocolate!
Hi Claire, I made these yesterday, they were amaze balls, best, yes best HCBs I have ever tasted.
Just a couple of quick questions if you don’t mind, Q1. My hubby insisted I add dark chocolate chips to the recipe cause apparently you must have chocolate in everything so, as to keep my chocoholic happy I dropped the saltanas to 1 cup and added ½ cup of chocolate chips, this made them extra yummy but also extra sweet with the ½ cup sugar in your original recipe, would it be ok to drop the sugar quantity in the recipe without problems? And Q2, can this recipe be doubled and if so should I also double the quantity of yeast or leave it as is? Thank you again for sharing your fantabulous recipe. Oh & I only got 9 cause I made big HCBs, apparently this is also a requirement 😁 according to resident Chocoholic! 🤣😂
Happy Easter everyone 🐇🐇🐇
Hi Mish,
So glad you like them! Unfortunately as I haven’t tested dropping the sugar I can’t guarantee anything, having said that however, I would be very surprised if dropping it a little (maybe back to 1/3 of a cup or something?) would cause any drama. As a general rule, any recipe can be doubled a long as you keep the ratio of everything exactly the same and adjust time frames accordingly and have cookware large enough to accommodate it. So I would imagine it will double beautifully but definitely double the yeast. So glad you like it! I just make them smaller so they don’t get overcooked on the outside before their inside are done because I love them as lightly done as possible 🙂