Easter: hot cross buns

Hot cross buns and coffee

The great thing about feeling a bit peckish after lunch and before dinner on Easter Sunday is that hot crossed buns are the go-to answer. You might have a bread bin full of them at this time of the year; or your might be like me and decide to work for your food and make them from scratch.

I followed Jamie Oliver’s hot cross bun recipe and it worked a treat - a hot, sticky, buttery treat.

Lewis Road Cremery butter is about the best kind of treatment for a hot cross bun

The baked consistency of the finished buns is almost cake-like - at the upper end of cake right before it becomes bread - probably because this is an enriched dough ie: it has egg and butter in it. I was a bit stingy with the fruit having only a handful or two of sultanas because I’m not a big mixed dried fruit fan.

Soaking the sultanas in orange-juice for a couple of hours really plumped them up, and also provided a tasty liquid to make the crosses and the glaze with. Next time I’ll go with heaped measures of the spices too, just to give it more oompf.

Best thing of all about making these hot crossed buns from scratch today was that the whole house smells of spiced baking; just the most perfect kind of smells for an overcast, showery, Easter Sunday.

Sticky hot cross buns - easier than you think, and just as tasty as you’d imagine

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