Hot Cross Buns

It's getting to be that time!!!!

These are my two go-to recipes for "American" hot cross buns (icing cross). British hot cross buns are slightly different in how the cross is made (dough cross). I generally flavor the icing with either vanilla or lemon; Orange flavoring would be very tasty too.



"Authentic" is a difficult criteria. I've always been under the impressiont hat British hot cross buns were the authentic ones because I think that's where the nursery rhyme started. But who knows...

This recipe is essentially what I've evolved to since most of my family doesn't like candied fruit yet will tolerate dried currants.I do not agree, however, that they keep well for 4 days.

kuan said:

Is the crumb like potato bread, King’s Hawaiian, baguette? Buttery tops like white bread?

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It depends; the crumb could be fluffy like commercial white bread or coarser/drier like sourdough or even firm like a bagel. There seem be three variables: the fat in the recipe (butter v shortening), the amount of kneading (mroe kneading leads to tougher crumb), and the serving temperature (warm is softer than room temp or cold)... and, or course, normal errors such as over/under fermenting will have an impact too. One on-line and TV organization suggest that the tanzoung (probably misspelled) method can be applied for both crumb texture softness and increased shelf life.

My family likes them soft. I actually prefer mine to not be soft like grocery store style commerical hot cross buns and no matter which recipe I eat them room temp... plain and without butter or any other kind of topping. I'm tempted to make some clotted cream and slather that on.

Every Lent I make 2 or 3 batches of hot cross buns. This weekend is batch 1 and the plan to soak the currants in Calvados, 50-50 butter/shortening, and hand knead rather than machine knead. Debating on whether the cross will be cut, piped glazed, or piped paste. It feels more like blessing the buns to cut a cross but the shape is nicer when a cross is not cut. Hoping for a compromise in crumb texture.